[Alia]

Corruption in NO? Lordy, who'd a guessed. NO has long been a location of corruption. The great access to sea is not just useful for shipping vessels for goods, but also drug dealers. The money that has flowed through NO hands, and there's no accounting for what NO officials ever does with that money.

The Admin was indeed, very wise.

[Ellesu]

Another storm reaches hurricane status


MIAMI (AP) - There's another hurricane. Maria has been upgraded this morning from a tropical storm to a hurricane.

The National Hurricane Center says it's winds have grown to about 75 miles-an-hour and it's expected to get even stronger over the next 24 hours.

Maria this morning was about 645 miles east-southeast of Bermuda. Forecasters expect it to remain well off Bermuda and for now it's only a threat to shipping.

Maria is the 13th storm of the Atlantic hurricane season big enough to rate a name and it's the fifth to become a hurricane.

Peak storm activity typically happens right about now, between the end of August and the middle of September. But in an average year there are only four or five named storms by this date.