Source: AP News Alert

AP BREAKING: Joaquin Strengthens, Becoming 'Extremely Dangerous' Category 4 Storm

Hurricane Joaquin develops into Category 4 storm

Really Nasr

4 Hours Ago
CNBC.com

The National Weather Service has upgraded Hurricane Joaquin to a Category 4 storm that is "extremely dangerous."

The storm has already sustained winds from 131 mph to 151 mph. Forecasters expect the storm to stay offshore of the Eastern U.S., but there will still be coastal flooding and very heavy rains all the way up the seaboard.

The storm however is expected to weaken as it moves along the Eastern coast. Forecasters expect Joaquin will reach eastern Long Island sometime early next week, perhaps Monday night into Tuesday.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced a state of emergency ahead of Hurricane Joaquin, which is expected to start impacting the state with heavy rainfall on Friday.

Read more: http://abc7ny.com/weather/joaquin-strengthens-becoming-an-extremely-dangerous-category-4-storm/1009318/

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http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/cyclones/

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/09/voter_id_and_drivers_license_o.html

Voter ID and driver's license office closures black-out Alabama's Black Belt

Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com By Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com

on September 30, 2015 at 3:55 PM, updated September 30, 2015 at 3:59 PM

I still remember when the lady in the uniform giving me my driver's test asked me to do a three-point turn.

Instead, I gave her a blank stare. I had no idea what a three-point turn was. It was a couple of days after my sixteenth birthday, and I knew right then that I wouldn't be getting a license that day, but the lady was nice about it. Politely, she explained what I was supposed to do. Next we drove back to the Clarke County courthouse, and she failed me.

A couple weeks later, I took the test again. That time, I passed, but my parents weren't all that happy that we had to make a second trip.

And that trip was only 10 miles, each way. When you live in a rural area, 10 miles seems a lot farther there.

However, today a lot of folks will have to drive a lot farther just to be able to drive.

The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's website says their office at the Clarke County Courthouse is still open, but soon a lot of others nearby won't be. On Wednesday, the agency announced that it would close 31 offices throughout the state, leaving 29 counties without a place where 16-year-olds can take a driver's test, whether they pass on the first try or not.

That's an inconvenience.

But there's something bigger happening here.

In 2011, Alabama lawmakers approved the state's voter ID law, making it illegal to vote in Alabama without a government-issued photo ID.

For most folks, that's a driver's license.

MORE AT LINK

from studio audience early tonight that Colbert "eviscerated" him? I hope so.

Source: Think Progress

HEALTH
After Getting Shamed For 5000% Hike, ‘Most Hated Man In America’ Will Lower Drug Price
BY JUDD LEGUM SEP 22, 2015 7:59PM

Martin Shkreli, the controversial pharmaceutical CEO and former hedge fund manager, announced that he would reduce the price of the drug Daraprim to “a point that is more affordable.” Shkreli has been the subject of unrelenting criticism since he implemented a 5000% increase in the price of the drug — from $13.50 per pill to $750 — which is used to treat severe infections in AIDS patients and infants.

Shkreli, who talked to ABC News, declined to name the new price for the medicine, which has been on the market for 60 years. ABC described Shkreli as “the most hated man in America.”

While working at a company he founded called Retrophin, Shkreli had implemented a similar price hike on a kidney medicine. The Huffington Post reported that Shkeli “is part of a criminal investigation” involving Retrophin. He owes the company more than a half-million dollars.



Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/09/22/3704542/after-getting-shamed-for-5000-hike-most-hated-man-in-america-will-lower-drug-price/

DAILY KOS LINK: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/21/1423130/-Cartoon-Fun-and-games

Source: CBS News

@CBSNews: Obama staffer Jake Brewer killed in bicycle accident during ride to raise money for cancer http://t.co/WDuy8z1cMR/s/pIPc http://t.co/TILfUneWRN/s/Bene

Obama staffer Jake Brewer killed in bicycle accident

REBECCA KAPLAN CBS NEWS
Sep 20, 2015 4:44 PM EDT

President Obama issued a statement Sunday saying he was "heartbroken" after a White House staffer, Jake Brewer, was killed in a bicycle accident.

"Armed with a brilliant mind, a big heart, and an insatiable desire to give back, Jake devoted his life to empowering people and making government work better for them. He worked to give citizens a louder voice in our society. He engaged our striving immigrants. He pushed for more transparency in our democracy. And he sought to expand opportunity for all," the president said. "I've often said that today's younger generation is smarter, more determined, and more capable of making a difference than I was as a young man. Jake was proof of that."

Brewer, 34, was a senior policy adviser in the White House Office of the Chief Technology office. The Washington Post reported Saturday that he was killed in Howard County, Maryland, during a bicycle ride that raised money to fight cancer. Brewer apparently lost control of his bicycle at a sharp curve along the race course, crossed the double yellow line and had a collision with an oncoming vehicle.

His wife, Mary Katharine Ham, is a conservative commentator and journalist. She shared news of her husband's death in a post on Instagram Sunday.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-staffer-jake-brewer-killed-in-bicycle-accident

FYI

http://boingboing.net/2015/09/16/arab-looking-man-of-syrian-des.html

Omar Ghabra won Twitter with these photos, and this quip: “An Arab-looking man of Syrian descent in a garage w/his accomplice building what appears to be a bomb. Arrest them.”

MORE AT LINK

http://gawker.com/7-kids-not-named-mohamed-who-brought-homemade-clocks-to-1730999866

7 Kids Not Named Mohamed Who Brought Homemade Clocks to School And Didn't Get Arrested

Andy Cush
Filed to: AHMED MOHAMED
9/16/15 12:10pm

Hoping to impress the teachers at his new school, an Irving, Texas, high school freshman named Ahmed Mohamed brought a homemade clock with him to MacArthur High Monday morning, which he’d assembled before bed the night before. When he showed it to those teachers, though, they were something other than impressed, and by Monday afternoon, Mohamed was being led out of school in handcuffs. Ahmed’s English teacher believed the device was a bomb.

Why? Could it have something to do with Ahmed Mohamed’s name, or the color of his skin? His father thinks so. “He just wants to invent good things for mankind,” Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed told the Dallas Morning News. “But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.”

Mohamed’s father might be right. Below are seven students, not named Mohamed, who got off scot-free for the heinous crime of DIY timekeeping, plus a bonus kid who brought an actual inert bomb to school and wasn’t suspended. (Mohamed got three days.)

Peter Mathis of Wilmington, North Carolina

REST OF LIST AT LINK