WPTF News

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Massive Hurricane Helene crashed into Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region, bringing storm surge and high winds across the state’s Gulf Coast communities before ripping into southern Georgia. The storm remained at hurricane strength as it crossed into southern Georgia, before weakening into a tropical storm as it approached Atlanta early Friday. It left a wide swath of rising water, known as storm surge, across Florida’s Gulf Coast. First responders were rescuing stranded people from Tampa and St. Petersburg to Cedar Key and Perry, close to where Helene made landfall late Thursday.

CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Helene has made landfall in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm as forecasters warn of “catastrophic” flooding along the Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center says Helene came ashore Thursday evening in the Big Bend area of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Officials have forecast storm surges of up to 20 feet and warned they could be particularly “catastrophic and unsurvivable” in Florida’s Apalachee Bay. Hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extend far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina. The governors of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia have all declared emergencies in their states.

WYOMING, Iowa (AP) — Taking a country drive in the Midwest means venturing into the corn zone. Snaking between 12-foot-tall green, leafy walls, the corn seems to block out nearly everything other than an occasional water tower. But soon, that towering corn might become a miniature of its former self, replaced by stalks only half as tall as the current green giants. The short corn offers farmers a variety that can withstand powerful windstorms that could become more frequent due to climate change. The smaller plants also let farmers plant at greater density, so they can grow more corn on the same amount of land and increase their profits. That is especially helpful as farmers endure low prices.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina appeals court has overturned a former county sheriff’s fraud and obstruction convictions from late 2022. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of ex-Granville County Sheriff Brindell Wilkins on Tuesday. Wilkins served as sheriff for 10 years and has been serving time in state prison. The intermediate-level appeals court said that allegations related to Wilkins falsifying his firearms training requirements didn’t meet the necessary elements for the obstruction and fraud charges. The ruling comes seven months after a subordinate to Wilkins had his obstruction convictions related to the training overturned. The ex-sheriff pleaded to unrelated crimes last fall.

BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near simultaneously in parts of Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people — including members of the militant group Hezbollah and a young girl. Officials in Lebanon say more than 2,700 were wounded on Tuesday, 200 critically. Hezbollah officials tell The Associated Press that the explosions affected a new brand of pagers used by the militant group. The explosions occurred in the suburbs of Beirut and in other areas that are Hezbollah strongholds. Hezbollah blamed the explosions on Israel. AP has reached out to the Israeli military, which declined to comment.

Parts of southeastern North Carolina have been deluged by another historic flood. Highways in Brunswick County remained underwater Tuesday, a day after about 18 inches of rain fell at nearby Carolina Beach in 12 hours. Emergency workers brought food and water to people as they waited for the flooding to recede. But the same area has seen four other floods of a lifetime in the past 25 years from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, unnamed storms in 2010 and 2015, and the benchmark flood with 30 inches of rain from Hurricane Florence in 2018. Meteorologists says warmer temperatures from climate change allows the air to hold more moisture and heavier rains to fall.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Presidential election campaigning is revving back up. Donald Trump heads on Tuesday to Michigan and Vice President Kamala Harris answers questions at a Black journalists forum in Pennsylvania. Their travels come as authorities continue to investigate a second apparent assassination attempt against Trump that’s roiled the race. Trump is holding a town hall in Flint, Michigan, and has appearances later in the week in New York, Washington and North Carolina. Harris will participate in a Philadelphia gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists. That follows a recent appearance before the group by Trump that sparked an uproar when he questioned the vice president’s racial identity.

NEW YORK (AP) — The longtime host of “The Late Show with David Letterman” made it to the final cuts before getting knocked off a jury about to hear a criminal trial involving cryptocurrency. Letterman, who stepped down from his show in 2015, was serving a stint on jury duty in Manhattan federal court Monday and came close to being picked for the first time for a jury. It was at the trial of a man charged with participating in a cryptocurrency fraud that caused over $10 million in losses to more than 20 victims. Letterman made it to a final round before being excused from the jury late in the day.