COLU @ CONCEPTS

MIAMI (AP) — The Latest on tropical weather (all times local): 10 p.m. A series of Facebook posts by Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit is capturing the power of Hurricane Maria as it roars past the island as a Category 5 storm. About 8:45 p.m. Skerrit writes: “The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God!” A few minutes later, he writes that he can hear the sound of galvanized steel roofs coming off houses on the small, rugged island in the eastern Caribbean. He then writes that he believes his home has been damaged. And three words: “Rough! Rough! Rough!” A half-hour later he says “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.” Seven minutes later he posts that he has been rescued. Maria was passing just south of Dominica late Monday and into early Tuesday on a path taking it toward Puerto Rico. ___ 9:15 p.m. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says the eye wall of Category 5 Maria is moving onsh...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Dissension and conflict are at their highest levels since the Cold War and cooperation among nations has become more difficult in a world that is more interdependent than ever, France’s top diplomat said Monday as global leaders gathered at the United Nations. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told a news conference that heads of state and government were coming together for their annual meeting at the General Assembly at “a critical moment” that is witnessing “a worrying degradation of the international environment.” What is worse, he said, is that some countries are increasingly questioning the role of working together, “and with a temptation of withdrawal out of fear or selfishness.” He gave no examples but appeared to be pointing to growing nationalism in the United States and some European countries. The ministerial session starts Tuesday with a state of the world speech by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. U.S. President Donald T...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump used his United Nations debut on Monday to prod the international organization to cut its bloated bureaucracy and fulfill its mission. But he pledged U.S. support for the world body he had excoriated as a candidate, and his criticisms were more restrained than in years past. “In recent years, the United Nations has not reached its full potential due to bureaucracy and mismanagement,” Trump said. “We are not seeing the results in line with this investment.” The president urged the U.N. to focus “more on people and less on bureaucracy” and to change “business as usual and not be beholden to ways of the past which were not working.” He also suggested the U.S. was paying more than its fair share to keep the New York-based world body operational. The short remarks at a forum on U.N. reforms were a precursor to Tuesday’s main event, when Trump will address the U.N. General Assembly for the first time, a speech nervously awaited by wor...

NEW YORK (AP) — Giancarlo Stanton’s smacks, Aaron Judge’s jolts and all those dizzying long balls helped Major League Baseball move another poke closer to the inevitable. Nearly two decades after the height of the Steroids Era, the sport is on track to break its season record for home runs on Tuesday — and not just top the old mark, but smash it like one of those upper-deck shots that have become commonplace in the Summer of the Slugger. There were 5,663 home runs hit through Sunday, 30 shy of the record set in 2000. Juiced balls? Watered-down pitching? Stanton’s renaissance? Sensational starts by Judge and Cody Bellinger? “I don’t think that we are ever going to have a single explanation for exactly why we’ve see so many,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “But players are bigger and stronger. They’re playing a little differently, in terms of the way they swing. Pitchers throw harder. The one thing I remain comfortable with: Nothing about the baseball, according t...

PASADENA, Texas (AP) — The U.S. government received reports of three spills at one of Houston’s dirtiest Superfund toxic waste sites in the days after the drenching rains from Hurricane Harvey finally stopped. Aerial photos reviewed by The Associated Press show dark-colored water surrounding the site as the floods receded, flowing through Vince Bayou and into the city’s ship channel. The reported spills, which have been not publicly detailed, occurred at U.S. Oil Recovery, a former petroleum industry waste processing plant contaminated with a dangerous brew of cancer-causing chemicals. On Aug. 29, the day Harvey’s remnants cleared out, a county pollution control team sent photos to the Environmental Protection Agency of three large concrete tanks flooded with water. That led PRP Group, the company overseeing the ongoing cleanup, to call a federal emergency hotline to report a spill affecting nearby Vince Bayou. Over the next several days, the company reported two more spills...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has overwhelmingly approved a sweeping defense policy bill that would pump $700 billion into the military, putting the U.S. armed forces on track for a budget greater than at any time during the decade-plus wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senators passed the legislation by an 89-8 vote Monday. The measure authorizes $700 billion in military spending for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, expands U.S. missile defenses in response to North Korea’s growing hostility and refuses to allow excess military bases to be closed. The 1,215-page measure defies a number of White House objections, but President Donald Trump hasn’t threatened to veto the measure. The bill helps him honor a pledge to rebuild an American military that he said had become depleted on former President Barack Obama’s watch. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other national security hawks have insisted the military branches are at risk of losing their edge in combat without a dramatic in...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans expressed growing hope Monday for a final push to scuttle President Barack Obama’s health care law, an effort that still faces an uphill climb and just a two-week window to pass. Adding more risk, senators would be in the dark about the bill’s impact on Americans, since the Congressional Budget Office says crucial estimates won’t be ready in time for a vote. Democrats backed by doctors, hospitals, and patients’ groups mustered an all-out effort to finally smother the GOP drive, warning of millions losing coverage and others facing skimpier policies. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went further, saying the partisan measure threatened the spirit of cooperation between President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders embodied in a recent budget deal and progress on immigration. “After two weeks of thinking bipartisanship, that flickering candle, might gain some new light, this is the last thing we need,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate...