POINTE-À-PITRE: Hurricane Maria smashed into the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica on Tuesday, with its prime minister describing devastating damage as winds and rain from the powerful storm also hit territories still reeling from Irma.
As residents hunkered down in their homes the Category Five hurricane made landfall with top winds swirling at 160 miles (257 km) per hour, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
“We have lost all what money can buy and replace,” Dominica’s premier Roosevelt Skerrit posted on Facebook, saying there were initial reports of “widespread devastation.”
“My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains.”
Earlier, he said his roof had been blown off, his house was flooding and he was “at the complete mercy of the hurricane.”
After being rescued Skerrit appealed for “help of all kinds” but noted specifically that helicopters will be needed so that authorities could survey the damage.
Dominica’s airport and ports have been closed.
After moving across the tropical island of 72,000 people, Maria was downgraded to an “extremely dangerous” Category Four hurricane but could strengthen again as it races north toward the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
The NHC warned of dangerous storm surges, destructive waves, flash floods and mudslides and warned that “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion.”
The French territory of Guadeloupe — the bridgehead for aid for Irma-hit French territories — ordered all residents to take shelter in a maximum-level “violet alert.” Heavy rain lashed the island and several areas were without power Tuesday morning.
The Dominican Republic, the east coast of which was battered by Irma, ordered citizens in part of the north to evacuate ahead of Maria’s arrival, expected Wednesday.
St. Kitts, Nevis, the British island of Montserrat, Culebra and Vieques were also on alert.
Martinique, a French island south of Dominica, suffered power cuts but avoided major damage as the storm skirted its shores.
Flooding, mudslides and power outages were also reported in parts of St. Lucia.
Criticized for the pace of relief efforts in their overseas territories devastated by Irma, Britain, France and the Netherlands said they were boosting resources for the Caribbean.
“We are planning for the unexpected, we are planning for the worst,” said Chris Austin, head of a UK military task force set up to deal with Irma, as the British Virgin Islands readied for a new onslaught.
On the island of St. Martin, which is split between France and the Netherlands, authorities announced a red alert ahead of Maria’s arrival.
“We’re watching its trajectory very closely, and we’re preparing for the worst-case scenario,” said local official Anne Laubies.
In Guadeloupe’s biggest city of Pointe-a-Pitre, Elodie Corte, the boss of a metalworking company, said there had been frantic preparations to limit the damage from the storm.
“We spent the morning strapping down the aluminum to stop it from flying away if the winds are strong,” she said Monday.
The Dutch navy tweeted that troops were heading to the two tiny neighboring islands of Saba and St. Eustatius to ensure security following widespread complaints after the first hurricane of looting and lawlessness on St. Martin, among the worst hit by Irma, with 14 killed.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said 110 more soldiers would be deployed to the region to reinforce about 3,000 people already there shoring up security, rebuilding infrastructure and distributing aid.
But he warned of “major difficulties” if Guadeloupe is hard hit.
Irma, also a Category 5 hurricane, left around 40 people dead in the Caribbean before churning west and pounding Florida, where the death toll stood at 50 Monday.
It broke weather records when it whipped up winds of 295 kilometers per hour for more than 33 hours straight.
Another hurricane, Jose, is also active in the Atlantic and has triggered tropical storm warnings for the northeastern US.
Many scientists are convinced that megastorms such as Irma, and Harvey before it, are intensified by the greater energy they can draw from oceans that are warming as a result of climate change.
Hurricane Maria wreaks devastation in Dominica
Hurricane Maria wreaks devastation in Dominica
Early holiday, more fans: Philippines schools adapt to climate change
- Last year, heatwaves forced millions of children in the Philippines out of school
- This school year started two months earlier than usual, so the term ends before peak heat in May
MANILA: Kindergarten teacher Lolita Akim fires up five standing fans with three more at the ready as she fights to hold the attention of her pint-sized pupils in Manila’s soaring heat.
Last year, heatwaves forced millions of children in the Philippines out of school. It was the first time that soaring temperatures had caused widespread class suspensions, prompting a series of changes.
This school year started two months earlier than usual, so the term ends before peak heat in May. Classes have been rearranged to keep children out of the midday heat, and schools are equipped with fans and water stations.
The moves are examples of how countries are adapting to the higher temperatures caused by climate change, often with limited resources.
As a teacher, Akim is on the frontlines of the battle to keep her young charges safe and engaged.
“In this weather, they get drenched in sweat; they become uneasy and stand up often. Getting them to pay attention is more difficult,” she said of the five-year-olds in her care at the Senator Benigno S. Aquino Elementary School.
Some six million students lost up to two weeks’ worth of classroom learning last year as temperatures hit a record 38.8°Celsius, according to the education department.
Schools reported cases of heat exhaustion, nose bleeds and hospitalizations as students struggled through lessons in classrooms without air conditioning.
Scientists say that extreme heat is a clear marker of climate change, caused largely by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.
Last year’s heat was further exacerbated by the seasonal El Nino phenomenon.
But even this year, nearly half Manila’s schools were forced to close for two days in March when the heat index – a measure of temperature and humidity – hit “danger” levels.
“We’ve been reporting (the heat index) since 2011, but it’s only been recently that it’s become exceptionally warm,” national weather service specialist Wilmer Agustin said, attributing it to “El Nino and climate change.”
This year, conditions in most of the country will range between “extreme caution” and “danger” on the government’s heat alert system, he said, “especially in April and May.”
On Friday, scores of schools in Manila were shuttered as temperatures were expected to hit 34°C, while the national weather service said the heat index for at least five provinces would hit the danger level.
During last year’s closures, alternative learning helped make up some of the gap.
But “the overall impact on students’ education was significant,” said Jocelyn Andaya, assistant education secretary for operations.
So this year, a series of measures have been instated to avoid further learning loss.
Classroom sessions have been shortened to four hours a day – avoiding the searing midday sun – and water stations were installed in each classroom as well as at least two oscillating wall fans.
Some newer schools have heat-reflective roofs, and bigger ones now employ nurses.
Just three percent of students affected by last year’s heatwaves were able to access online classes, so this year printed material was prepared for students if they must stay home.
Even so, Benigno Aquino school principal Noel Gelua cautioned that “there is no real alternative to face-to-face learning.”
But there are limits to what can be done, given the education department has a budget of just 10 billion pesos ($174 million) for climate adaptation, infrastructure and disaster readiness.
The Philippines also has a perennial classroom shortage, with 18,000 more needed in the capital alone.
Manila’s public schools do two shifts per day, with about 50 students in each 63 square-meter room, exacerbating the heat problem.
Fifth-grader Ella Azumi Araza, 11, can only attend four days a week due to the shortage.
On Fridays, she studies in her family’s nine-square-meter cinderblock home on a bed she shares with her younger brother, who suffers from epilepsy.
Three electric fans are always on in the windowless, single-room structure.
As hot as it is at home, her mother Cindella Manabat still frets about conditions at school, saying that she comes home coughing.
“I make her carry a jug of water to prevent dehydration,” she said.
Across the street from Benigno Aquino, eighth-graders at President Corazon C. Aquino High School aimed tiny, rechargeable fans at their bodies while taking an algebra quiz.
Two of the four ceiling fans in the room had given out and the remaining two were clearly not enough for the 40 students.
“It is very difficult to teach in the heat,” their teacher Rizzadel Manzano said.
“Motivating them is really a challenge.”
A school uniform requirement was ditched earlier this year, and students now wear sweatpants and T-shirts donated by the city, principal Reynora Laurenciano said.
Both schools are located in a densely populated slum area called Baseco, where conditions at home can be even more dire, she added.
“If you ask them, they consider (school) a safer place,” Laurenciano said.
Trump administration cuts thousands of immigrants off from Social Security
- Adding the immigrants to the so-called ‘death file’ is ‘aimed at putting pressure on the undocumented immigrants to leave the country’
- The policy aligns with other high-profile anti-immigration measures taken by Donald Trump’s White House since his second term began
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has added over 6,000 immigrants to a database of dead Social Security recipients, effectively cutting off benefits and their ability to work, US media reported Thursday.
Adding the immigrants to the so-called “death file” is “aimed at putting pressure on the undocumented immigrants to leave the country,” the Washington Post said, citing a White House official.
The policy aligns with other high-profile anti-immigration measures taken by Donald Trump’s White House since his second term began, including sending more than 200 suspected gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Social Security Numbers (SSNs) are a key identifier for people in the United States, used to report earnings, establish eligibility for welfare benefits and other purposes.
Hundreds of thousands of people who are in the country illegally nevertheless have a US Social Security Number.
Many arrived during the Biden administration, which allowed certain people to enter temporarily as a way of reducing illegal border crossings.
The White House official told the Washington Post that once people are listed as dead in the Social Security system, they will be shut out by many employers, landlords and banks as well as federal agencies – essentially ending their ability to earn a living in the country.
Media reported that the move to use the “death file” was spearheaded by staff from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Citing administration documents, the New York Times reported that the initial group of 6,300 people was made up of “convicted criminals and ‘suspected terrorists.’”
But both papers reported that the measure could soon be applied to many more undocumented migrants.
Weaponizing the Social Security system against undocumented migrants follows steps taken to share taxpayer information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with immigration authorities announced on Tuesday.
Millions of undocumented migrants have long paid taxes as a way of boosting both their immigration cases and the financial health of massive US federal programs such as Social Security.
US Supreme Court says Trump administration must work to bring back mistakenly deported Maryland man
- District Judge Paula Xinis had earlier ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the US urgently
- The administration has conceded that it made a mistake in sending the man to El Salvador, but argued that it no longer could do anything about it
WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Trump administration must work to bring back a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador, rejecting the administration’s emergency appeal.
The court acted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.
US District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, returned to the United States by midnight Monday.
“The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” the court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents.
It comes after a string of rulings on the court’s emergency docket where the conservative majority has at least partially sided with Trump amid a wave of lower court orders slowing the president’s sweeping agenda.
In Thursday’s case, Chief Justice John Roberts had already pushed back Xinis’ deadline. The justices also said that her order must now be clarified to make sure it doesn’t intrude into executive branch power over foreign affairs, since Abrego Garcia is being held abroad. The court said the Trump administration should also be prepared to share what steps it has taken to try to get him back — and what more it could potentially do.
The administration claims Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, though he has never been charged with or convicted of a crime. His attorneys said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.
The administration has conceded that it made a mistake in sending him to El Salvador, but argued that it no longer could do anything about it.
The court’s liberal justices said the administration should have hastened to correct “its egregious error” and was “plainly wrong” to suggest it could not bring him home.
“The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by her two colleagues.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said the ordeal has been an “emotional rollercoaster” for their family and the entire community.
“I am anxiously waiting for Kilmar to be here in my arms, and in our home putting our children to bed, knowing this nightmare is almost at its end. I will continue fighting until my husband is home,” she said.
One of his lawyers, Simon Sandoval-Moshenburg, said “tonight, the rule of law prevailed,” and he encouraged the government to “stop wasting time and get moving.”
In the district court, Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest Abrego Garcia and send him to El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless.” There is little to no evidence to support a “vague, uncorroborated” allegation that Abrego Garcia was once in the MS-13 street gang, Xinis wrote.
The 29-year-old was detained by immigration agents and deported last month.
He had a permit from the Homeland Security Department to legally work in the US and was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a US citizen.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant DHS secretary for public affairs, said Thursday that the justices’ order for clarification from the lower court was a win for the administration. “We look forward to continuing to advance our position in this case,” she said.
An immigration judge had previously barred the US from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in 2019, finding that he faced likely persecution by local gangs.
A Justice Department lawyer conceded in a court hearing that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported. Attorney General Pam Bondi later removed the lawyer, Erez Reuveni, from the case and placed him on leave.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at Stanford charged with felonies
- Those charged were arrested in June 2024 during a protest action that turned violent, with a police officer injured and school building suffering “extensive” damage
WASHINGTON: Twelve protesters were charged on Thursday with felony vandalism for their actions during a June 2024 pro-Palestinian protest at Stanford University in which demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the office of the school president.
Those charged, ranging in age from 19 to 32, entered the building and demonstrated a “conspiracy to occupy” it, prosecutors said, adding that at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. All suspects wore masks, they said. Dozens of other protesters surrounded the building and chanted: “Palestine will be free.” At the time, the university said 13 people were arrested during the protest, one police officer was injured and the building suffered “extensive” damage.
Protesters renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” in honor of Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Those charged could not immediately be reached and it was not clear if they retained legal representation.
President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from universities, including Stanford, over allegations that they failed to stop antisemitism and intimidation of Jewish students.
Protesters say their criticism of Israel’s military assault on Gaza has been wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
Beijing bites back at US tariffs by curbing Hollywood film imports
- Hollywood’s share in China’s box office drops to 5 percent
- Domestic films dominate China’s box office, accounting for 80 percent of revenue
BEIJING: China said on Thursday it would immediately restrict imports of Hollywood films in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s escalation of US tariffs on imported Chinese goods, targeting one of the most high-profile American exports.
Industry analysts said the financial impact was likely to be minimal, however, because Hollywood’s box office returns in China have declined significantly in recent years.
After three decades during which China imported 10 Hollywood movies per year, Beijing’s National Film Administration said Trump’s tariff actions would further sour domestic demand for US cinema in China.
“We will follow market rules, respect the audience’s choices, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported,” the NFA said on its website.
Hollywood studios once looked to China, the world’s second-largest film market, to help boost box office performance of movies. But domestic movies increasingly have outperformed Hollywood’s fare in China, with “Ne Zha 2” this year eclipsing Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time.
Chris Fenton, author of “Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business,” said limiting US-made films was a “super high-profile way to make a statement of retaliation with almost zero downside for China.”
Hollywood films account for only 5 percent of overall box office receipts in China’s market. And Hollywood studios receive only 25 percent of ticket sales in China, compared with double that in other markets, Fenton said.
“Such a high-profile punishment of Hollywood is an all-win motion of strength by Beijing that will surely be noticed by Washington,” Fenton added.
Trump did not jump to Hollywood’s defense. “I think I’ve heard of worse things,” the president said when asked about China’s restrictions.
Many Hollywood celebrities supported Trump’s Democratic opponent in last year’s election.
One entertainment industry source predicted that big Hollywood blockbusters, which continue to attract moviegoers in China, may still reach the big screen. Walt Disney’s Marvel superhero movie “Thunderbolts,” which kicks off the summer blockbuster season, recently received permission to debut in China on April 30.
It was not clear if China would approve the entry of other major releases this summer, such as Paramount’s “Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” which may mark Tom Cruise’s last appearance in the long-running franchise, Warner Bros’ new “Superman” movie from “Guardians of the Galaxy” filmmaker James Gunn, and Marvel’s new take on “The Fantastic Four.
Limited impact
IMAX said it expects the slate for its large-format screens, which includes Hollywood, Chinese and international films, would not be materially impacted by the restrictions.
“We continue to expect a strong year for IMAX in China, coming off our highest-grossing first quarter ever in the country,” an IMAX spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.
Seth Shafer, principal analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan, predicted the restrictions would have limited impact.
“Only roughly 25 percent of domestic wide-release films are now released in China and that percentage has dropped steadily over time due to increasing competition from China’s local film production industry,” Shafer said. “For domestic films that do get a release in China, typically less than 10 percent of the film’s global gross box office revenue comes from China.”
“Captain America: Brave New World,” a Marvel film released in February, took in $14.4 million in China out of its $413 million in global receipts.
In the past, imports including “Titanic” and “Avatar” became box office smashes in the Chinese market, making actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and directors such as James Cameron household names among Chinese film lovers across generations.
Since 2020, Chinese-made films have consistently accounted for around 80 percent of annual box office revenue, up from around 60 percent previously.
On China’s all-time box office list, only one imported film ranks in the top 20 — “Avengers: Endgame,” with revenue of 4.25 billion yuan ($579.83 million). The remaining films in the top 20 are all domestic productions.
