NEW ORLEANS: Rescuers in boats, helicopters and high-water trucks brought people trapped by Hurricane Ida’s floodwaters to safety Monday and utility repair crews rushed in, after the furious storm swamped the Louisiana coast and ravaged the electrical grid in the stifling, late-summer heat.
Residents living amid the maze of rivers and bayous along the state’s Gulf Coast retreated desperately to their attics or roofs and posted their addresses on social media with instructions for search-and-rescue teams on where to find them.
More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — were left without power as Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the US mainland, pushed through on Sunday.
The damage was so extensive that officials warned it could be weeks before the power grid was repaired.
As the storm was downgraded to a tropical depression Monday afternoon and continued to make its way inland with torrential rain, it was blamed for at least two deaths — a motorist who drowned in New Orleans and a person hit by a falling tree outside Baton Rouge.
But with many roads impassable and cellphone service out in places, the full extent of its fury was still coming into focus. Christina Stephens, a spokesperson for Gov. John Bel Edwards, said that given the level of destruction, “We’re going to have many more confirmed fatalities.”
The governor’s office said damage to the power grid appeared “catastrophic” — dispiriting news for those without refrigeration or air conditioning during the dog days of summer, with highs forecast in the mid-80s to near 90 by midweek.
“There are certainly more questions than answers. I can’t tell you when the power is going to be restored. I can’t tell you when all the debris is going to be cleaned up and repairs made,” Edwards told a news conference. “But what I can tell you is we are going to work hard every day to deliver as much assistance as we can.”
In hard-hit LaPlace, squeezed between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, rescuers saved people from flooded homes in a near-constant operation.
Debbie Greco, her husband and son rode out the storm in LaPlace with Greco’s parents. Water reached the first-floor windows, then knocked down the back door and filled the brick home with 4 feet of water. They retreated to the second floor, but then screaming winds collapsed the roof.
They were finally rescued by boat after waiting in the only dry spot, five people sharing the landing on the stairs.
“When I rebuild this I’m out of here. I’m done with Louisiana,” said Greco’s father, 85-year-old Fred Carmouche, a lifelong resident.
Elsewhere in LaPlace, people pulled pieces of chimneys, gutters and other parts of their homes to the curb and residents of a mobile home park waded through floodwaters.
In just three parishes, 191 people and 27 pets had been rescued by Monday afternoon, Edwards said.
The hurricane blew ashore on the 16th anniversary of Katrina, the 2005 storm that breached New Orleans’ levees, devastated the city and was blamed for 1,800 deaths.
This time, New Orleans appeared to escape the catastrophic flooding city officials had feared.
Stephanie Blaise returned to her home with her father in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward after evacuating. The neighborhood suffered devastating flooding in Katrina, but only lost some shingles in Idaho However, with no idea when electricity would be restored, Blaise didn’t plan to stay long.
“We don’t need to go through that. I’m going to have to convince him to leave. We got to go somewhere. Can’t stay in this heat,” she said.
The city urged people who evacuated to stay away for at least a couple of days because of the lack of power and fuel. “There’s not a lot of reasons to come back,” said Collin Arnold, chief of emergency preparedness.
Also, 18 water systems serving about 255,000 customers in Louisiana were knocked out of service, the state Health Department said.
Four Louisiana hospitals were damaged and 39 medical facilities were operating on generator power, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. Officials said they were evacuating scores of patients to other cities.
The governor’s office said over 2,200 evacuees were staying in 41 shelters, a number expected to rise as people were rescued or escaped flooded homes. The governor’s spokesperson said the state will work to move people to hotels as soon as possible so they can keep their distance from one another.
“This is a COVID nightmare,” Stephens said, adding: “We do anticipate that we could see some COVID spikes related to this.”
Preliminary measurements showed Slidell, Louisiana, got at least 15.7 inches of rain, while New Orleans received nearly 14 inches, forecasters said. Other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama and Florida got 5 to 11 inches.
The Louisiana National Guard said it activated 4,900 Guard personnel and lined up 195 high-water vehicles, 73 rescue boats and 34 helicopters. Local and state agencies were adding hundreds more. Edwards said he decided not to tour hurricane damage by air Monday to add one more aircraft to the effort.
On Grand Isle, the 40 people who stayed on the barrier island through the brunt of the hurricane gave aircraft checking on them Monday a thumbs-up, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto said.
The road to the island remained impassable and rescuers would try to reach them as soon as they are able, the sheriff said.
The hurricane twisted and collapsed a giant tower that carries key transmission lines over the Mississippi River to the New Orleans area, causing widespread outages, Entergy and local authorities said. The power company said more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines were out of service, along with 216 substations. The tower had survived Katrina.
The storm also flattened utility poles, toppled trees onto power lines and caused transformers to explode.
The governor said 25,000 utility workers were in the state to help restore electricity, with more on the way. “We’re going to push Entergy to restore power just as soon as they can,” Edwards said.
AT&T said its wireless network in Louisiana was reduced to 60 percent of normal but was coming back. Many people resorted to using walkie-talkies. The governor’s office staff had no working phones. The company sent a mobile tower to the state’s emergency preparedness office so it could get some service.
Charchar Chaffold left her home near LaPlace for Alabama after a tree fell on it Sunday. She frantically tried to get in touch via text message with five family members who stayed behind.
She last heard from them Sunday night. They were in the attic after water rushed into their home. “They told me they thought they was going to die. I told them they are not and called for help,” she said.
Ida’s 150 mph (230 kph) winds tied it for the fifth-strongest hurricane ever to hit the mainland. Its winds were down to 40 mph (64 kph) around midday Monday.
In Mississippi’s southwestern corner, entire neighborhoods were surrounded by floodwaters, and many roads were impassable. Several tornadoes were reported, including a suspected twister in Saraland, Alabama, that ripped part of the roof off a motel and flipped an 18-wheeler, injuring the driver, according to the National Weather Service.
Ida was expected to pick up speed Monday night before dumping rain on the Tennessee and Ohio River valleys Tuesday, the Appalachian mountain region Wednesday and the nation’s capital on Thursday.
Forecasters said flash flooding and mudslides were possible along Ida’s path before it blows out to sea over New England on Friday.
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Reeves reported from LaPlace, Louisiana. Associated Press writers Janet McConnaughey and Kevin McGill in New Orleans; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
Hurricane Ida traps Louisianans, shatters the power grid
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Hurricane Ida traps Louisianans, shatters the power grid
Judge bars deportation of pro-Palestinian Georgetown University student
- Badar Khan Suri being targeted for wife’s Palestinian heritage and for pro-Palestinian views, lawyer says
- US Homeland Department alleges Suri, an Indian studying at Washington’s Georgetown University, has ties to Hamas
WASHINGTON: A federal judge ordered President Donald Trump’s administration not to deport Badar Khan Suri, an Indian man studying at Washington’s Georgetown University whose lawyer has said the United States was seeking to remove him after it accused him of harming US foreign policy.
The order is to remain in effect until lifted by the court, according to the three-paragraph order by US District Judge Patricia Giles in Alexandria, Virginia.
The Department of Homeland Security has accused Badar Khan Suri of ties to the Palestinian militant group Hamas and said he had spread Hamas propaganda and antisemitism on social media. On March 15, Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined Suri could be deported for those activities, according to DHS.
Suri is living in the US on a student visa and is married to an American citizen and has been detained in Alexandria, Louisiana, according to his lawyer. He is awaiting a court date in immigration court, his lawyer said.
Federal agents arrested him outside his home in Rosslyn, Virginia, on Monday night. The lawyer welcomed Thursday’s ruling and called it “the first bit of due process Dr. Khan Suri has received since he was snatched from his family Monday night.”
The American Civil Liberties Union also defended Suri and said he was “transferred to multiple immigration detention centers” before being taken to Alexandria, Louisiana.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s court order.
The case comes as Trump seeks to deport foreigners who took part in pro-Palestinian protests against US ally Israel’s war in Gaza following an October 2023 Hamas attack. Trump’s measures have sparked outcry from civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups who accuse his administration of unfairly targeting political critics by invoking rarely used laws.
Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which is part of the university’s School of Foreign Service.
Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a US citizen, said his lawyer. Saleh is from Gaza, according to the Georgetown University website, which said she has written for Al Jazeera and Palestinian media outlets and worked with the foreign ministry in Gaza. Saleh has not been arrested, the lawyer added.
The lawyer had said on Wednesday Suri was being targeted for his wife’s Palestinian heritage and for his own pro-Palestinian views.
Some media outlets, including the Washington Post, reported that Ahmed Yousef, the father of Suri’s wife, was a former political adviser to Hamas. Yousef had also written for some Western publications like The Guardian.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration arrested and sought to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests. Khalil was moved to Louisiana and is challenging his detention in court.
Trump, without evidence, has accused Khalil of supporting Hamas. Khalil’s legal team says he has no links to the militant group that the US designates as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
Trump has alleged pro-Palestinian protesters are antisemitic. Pro-Palestinian advocates, including some Jewish groups, say that their criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and their support for Palestinian rights are wrongly conflated with antisemitism by their critics.
EU presses on with steel ‘porcupine strategy’ for Ukraine as Russia tries to end Western support
- The 27-nation bloc aims to build the Ukrainian armed forces and defense industry into an even more formidable opponent
- With the UK and other partners, some European countries are also working on a deterrence force to police any future peace
BRUSSELS: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key peace demand that Western allies stop providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine is quietly being ignored by the European Union.
As US-led talks with Russia and Ukraine progress, without the Europeans at the table, the 27-nation bloc is pressing ahead with a steel “porcupine strategy” aimed at building the Ukrainian armed forces, and the country’s defense industry, into an even more formidable opponent.
At an EU summit on Thursday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that it’s “central” that Ukraine should remain an independent democratic nation that can continue its journey toward EU membership and “that it also has a strong army of its own after a peace agreement.”
“For us, it will be important to continue to support Ukraine significantly — as the European Union as a whole, as allies and friends and as individual countries,” Scholz told reporters in Brussels.
A few hours after he spoke, Scholz’s EU counterparts — with the exception of Hungary, which opposes the bloc’s “peace through strength” stance — called on member countries “to urgently step up efforts to address Ukraine’s pressing military and defense needs.”
Mindful of Russian deception in the past — the “little green men ” who annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, or the troop buildup in 2021 that Moscow denied would lead to any invasion — the Europeans are deeply skeptical about Putin’s intentions and whether he would accept any peace terms.
With the UK and other partners, some European countries are working on a deterrence force to police any future peace. At the same time, Ukraine’s best security guarantee, apart from the NATO membership that the US refuses, is that its own army is strong and well supplied.
In a defense blueprint unveiled on Wednesday, the European Commission set out how it plans to meet Ukraine’s security needs, with EU money available to help bolster its defense industry, which produces arms and ammunition more cheaply and closer to the battlefield.
“Ukraine is currently the front line of European defense, resisting a war of aggression driven by the single greatest threat to our common security,” the document says. “The outcome of that war will be a determinative factor in our collective future for decades ahead.”
At the heart of the EU’s strategy is a commitment to provide air defense systems and missiles — including long-range precision warheads. In groups, countries would jointly purchase the equipment and financially back Ukraine’s own effort to obtain them.
Drones are a major advantage on the battlefield, and the EU intends to back Ukraine’s procurement of them and help it build its own production capacity, including through joint ventures between European and Ukrainian industries.
Another aim is to provide at least 2 million rounds of large-caliber artillery shells each year, and to continue a training effort that has helped to prepare more than 75,000 Ukrainian troops so far. In return, European troops will learn from Ukraine’s front-line experience.
Ukraine would also be able to take part in the EU’s space program, with access to the services provided by national governments in the area of global positioning, navigation, surveillance and communications.
Financially, and beyond the estimated 138 billion euros ($150 billion) already provided to Ukraine, the government in Kyiv would be able to secure cheap loans for defense purposes — as can EU countries and Norway — from a new fund worth 150 billion euros ($162 billion).
Trump says US will sign Ukraine minerals deal soon
- Trump says peace talks going ‘pretty well’
- Ukraine minerals deal seen as repayment for US aid
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States will sign a minerals and natural resources deal with Ukraine shortly and that his efforts to achieve a peace deal for the country were going “pretty well” after his talks this week with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders.
Trump made the comments at a White House event after signing an order to increase US production of critical minerals.
“We’re doing very well with regard to Ukraine and Russia. And one of the things we are doing is signing a deal very shortly with respect to rare earths with Ukraine.”
Trump referred to his separate discussions this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Those talks, which fell short of Trump’s aim to secure a full 30-day ceasefire, resulted in Putin agreeing to stop Russian attacks on energy infrastructure for 30 days and Zelensky saying he would also accept such a pause.
“We would love to see that (war) come to an end, and I think we’re doing pretty well in that regard,” Trump said.
“So hopefully we’d save thousands of people a week from dying. That’s what it’s all about. They’re dying so unnecessarily, and I believe we’ll get it done.”
Ukraine and the US said this month they had agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources, which Trump sees as a means to pay back the United States for its assistance to Kyiv. Efforts to seal the deal stumbled after a disastrous White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky at the end of last month.
Trump and Zelensky agreed on Wednesday to work together to end Russia’s war with Ukraine, in what the White House described as a “fantastic” one-hour phone call, their first conversation since their Oval Office shouting match that resulted in a short-term cutoff in US military aid and intelligence to Kyiv.
It was unclear if the deal has changed. An earlier version did not include the explicit security guarantees Ukraine has sought, but gave the US access to revenues from Ukraine’s natural resources.
It also envisaged the Ukrainian government contributing 50 percent of monetized amounts for state-owned natural resources to a US-Ukraine managed reconstruction investment fund.
Asked how the current version of the minerals deal differs from the earlier draft, a senior US official said it was “more detailed and comprehensive,” declining to elaborate.
Ukraine’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In Brussels on Thursday, European Union leaders said they would continue to support Ukraine, but did not immediately endorse a call by Zelensky to approve a package of at least 5 billion euros for artillery purchases.
Macron announces new Ukraine ‘coalition’ summit in Paris on March 27
BRUSSELS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said the leaders of a coalition of Ukraine backers would meet again in Paris next week, hoping to finalize plans to secure a potential truce in the war with Russia.
“We will hold another meeting of the coalition of the willing next Thursday in Paris in presence of President (Volodymyr) Zelensky,” Macron told reporters following an EU summit.
Trump signs order aimed at dismantling US Department of Education
- The order is designed to leave school policy almost entirely in the hands of states and local boards
- The department oversees some 100,000 public and 34,000 private schools in the United States
- Democrats acknowledged on Thursday that Trump could effectively gut the department without congressional action
WASHINGTON: Flanked by students and educators, US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order intended to essentially dismantle the federal Department of Education, making good on a longstanding campaign promise to conservatives.
The order is designed to leave school policy almost entirely in the hands of states and local boards, a prospect that alarms liberal education advocates.
Thursday’s order was a first step “to eliminate” the department, Trump said at a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House. Shuttering the agency completely requires an act of Congress, and Trump lacks the votes for that.
“We’re going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs,” said Trump in front of a colorful backdrop of state flags.
Young students invited to the event sat at classroom desks encircling the president and signed their own mock executive orders alongside him.
The signing followed the department’s announcement last week that it would lay off nearly half of its staff, in step with Trump’s sweeping efforts to reduce the size of a federal government he considers to be bloated and inefficient.
Education has long been a political lightning rod in the United States. Conservatives favor local control over education policy and school-choice options that help private and religious schools, and left-leaning voters largely support robust funding for public schools and diversity programs.
But Trump has elevated the fight to a different level, making it part of a generalized push against what conservatives view as liberal indoctrination in America’s schools from the university level down to K-12 instruction.
He has sought to re-engineer higher education in the United States by reducing funding and pushing to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies at colleges and universities, just as he has in the federal government.
Columbia University, for example, faced a Thursday deadline to respond to demands to tighten restrictions on campus protests as preconditions for opening talks on restoring $400 million in suspended federal funding.
The White House also argues the Education Department is a waste of money, citing mediocre test scores, disappointing literacy rates and lax math skills among students as proof that the return on the agency’s trillions of dollars in investment was poor.
Local battles over K-12 curricula accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic, which saw parents angrily confront officials at school board meetings nationwide. It was a discontent that Trump, other Republican candidates and conservative advocacy groups such as Moms for Liberty tapped into.
Trump was joined at the ceremony by Republican governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida.
Democrats acknowledged on Thursday that Trump could effectively gut the department without congressional action.
“Donald Trump knows perfectly well he can’t abolish the Department of Education without Congress — but he understands that if you fire all the staff and smash it to pieces, you might get a similar, devastating result,” US Senator Patty Murray said in a statement.
Seeking closure
Trump suggested on Thursday that he will still seek to close down the department entirely, and that he wants Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who attended the White House event, to put herself out of a job.
The department oversees some 100,000 public and 34,000 private schools in the United States, although more than 85 percent of public school funding comes from state and local governments. It provides federal grants for needy schools and programs, including money to pay teachers of children with special needs, fund arts programs and replace outdated infrastructure.
It also oversees the $1.6 trillion in student loans held by tens of millions of Americans who cannot afford to pay for college outright.
For now, Trump’s executive order aims to whittle the department down to basic functions such as administering student loans, Pell Grants that help low-income students attend college and resources for children with special needs.
“We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said. “It’s doing us no good.”
Though Republicans control both chambers of Congress, Democratic support would be required to achieve the needed 60 votes in the Senate for such a bill to pass. At the event, Trump said the matter may ultimately land before Congress in a vote to do away with the department entirely.
Trump has acknowledged that he would need buy-in from Democratic lawmakers and teachers’ unions to fulfill his campaign pledge of fully closing the department. He likely will never get it.
“See you in court,” the head of the American Federation of Teachers union, Randi Weingarten, said in a statement.
A majority of the American public do not support closing the department.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found last month that respondents opposed shuttering the Department of Education by roughly two to one — 65 percent to 30 percent. The Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was conducted online and nationwide, surveyed 4,145 US adults and its results had a margin of error of about 2 percentage points.
Federal aid tends to flow more to Republican-leaning states than Democratic ones. It accounted for 15 percent of all K-12 revenue in states that voted for Trump in the 2024 election, compared with 11 percent of revenue in states that voted for his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, according to a Reuters analysis of Census Bureau data.
Two programs administered by the Department of Education — aid for low-income schools and students with special needs — are the largest of those federal aid programs.
