COLU @ CONCEPTS

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Officials across the northeastern Caribbean canceled airline flights, shuttered schools and urged people to hunker down indoors as Hurricane Irma barreled toward the region as a powerful Category 4 storm expected to strengthen more before nearing land late Tuesday. States of emergency were declared in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and all of Florida while people on various Caribbean islands boarded up homes and rushed to find last-minute supplies, forming long lines outside supermarkets and gas stations. Irma’s maximum sustained winds increased to near 150 mph (240 kph) early Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was centered about 320 miles (515 kilometers) east of the Leeward Islands and moving west at 14 mph (22 kph). Authorities warned that the storm could dump up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain, cause landslides and dangerous flash floods and generate waves of up to 23 feet (7 meters). “This is not an opportun...

HOUSTON (AP) — One couple displaced by Harvey managed to get a hotel room, but got kicked out after one night for lacking state identification that was lost to the flooding. A man whose cellphone was wrecked by floodwater is staying at a convention center, waiting for government offices to reopen Tuesday. While the number of evacuees seeking refuge in Houston’s emergency shelters has dwindled, many thousands of people are still in dire need of housing. Some returned to complexes inundated with sewage and mud. Others are staying with family and friends. More than 50,000 went to government-paid hotels, some far away from homes and schools. “You can’t just pick the hotel,” said D’Ona Spears, who has no way of getting her children to school when it resumes next week. “You have to go further out, further out, further out.” Spears and Brandon Polson had gotten a government-funded hotel room near downtown, but without ID they had to leave. After going to the Toyota Center, the ba...

BANGKOK (AP) — The number of Rohingya refugees that have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Myanmar is higher than previously thought at 123,000, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday. That higher number, revised up from 87,000 estimated on Monday, was the result of aid workers conducting new, more accurate counts at both established and makeshift refugee camps, said UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan. It did not mean all 36,000 new refugees counted had entered in the last 24 hours. Still, “the numbers are very worrying,” Tan said. “They are going up very quickly.” Thousands are streaming daily across the swampy border, having walked for days through forests and rice paddies to reach safety in Bangladesh. Others were attempting to cross the river that separates the two countries, and at least several dozen have drowned in the attempt. Older, established refugee camps that have been housing Rohingya since the 1990s have already reached capacity. Tens of thousands of new arri...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A web of President Donald Trump’s family and associates will be back in the crosshairs of congressional committees investigating whether his campaign colluded with Russia, as well as of the high-wattage legal team assembled by special counsel Robert Mueller. As Congress returns from a summer recess, some of the attention will be focused squarely on the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who will meet privately in the coming weeks with staffers on the Senate judiciary and intelligence committees. A meeting Trump Jr. convened with a Russian lawyer and others in the midst of the campaign has already been the subject of testimony before a grand jury that Mueller is using as part of his investigation, The Associated Press has learned. The expected crush of interviews, subpoenas and testimony this fall underscores both the broad scope of the Russia probes and the certainty that they will shadow Trump’s presidency for months or even years. Even if Trump and h...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has refrained from making any criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump. Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Putin dismissed a question whether he was disappointed in Trump as “naive.” In comments carried by Russian news agencies, Putin said Trump is “not my bride, and I’m not his groom.” Asked how Russia would feel if Trump were impeached, Putin said it would be “absolutely wrong” for Russia to discuss domestic U.S. politics: Russian officials cheered Trump when he was elected last year, and Putin praised him as someone who wanted to improve ties with Russia. However, further U.S. sanctions on Russia and the U.S. decision to close a Russian consulate have raised concerns that the two countries remain far apart. Source: www.apnews.com 

LA PAZ, Colombia (AP) — The rebel commander approached church workers at a remote camp in northern Colombia with an unusual request. Four former combatants beginning life as civilians had recently given birth, the first children born to women no longer dodging bombs and bullets in the jungle. “They are waiting to be baptized,” he explained. Would the church provide a priest? In the nine months since Colombia passed a historic peace accord with the nation’s largest rebel group to end Latin America’s long-running conflict, the Roman Catholic Church has emerged as a guiding force in bringing rebels back to civilian life and leading a still-bitter nation toward reconciliation. Pope Francis is expected to build on those efforts during this week’s trip to the South American country. Priests are celebrating Mass at the rustic camps where rebels have laid down their arms. Catholic aid workers are helping former guerrillas track down relatives they have not seen in decades. In ...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Latest on North Korea’s nuclear test and the world reaction (all times local): 4 p.m. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned North Korea’s latest nuclear test as a “flagrant violation” of international conventions, but also said there can only be a “diplomatic and peaceful solution” of the crisis. Merkel, who was speaking to the German parliament on Tuesday, said North Korea’s distance from Germany should not keep the country from helping to end the crisis. Merkel also talked to U.S. President Donald Trump late Monday to discuss the latest provocation by North Korea. Both leaders “condemned North Korea’s continued reckless and dangerous behavior” and reaffirmed the importance of close coordination at the United Nations. ___ 1:30 p.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for talks with North Korea, warning against “military hysteria.” Putin said during a news conference in China on Tuesday that it was important that all pa...