AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Dorian triggers massive flooding in Bahamas; at least 5 dead

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — Hurricane Dorian unleashed massive flooding across the Bahamas on Monday, pummeling the islands with so much wind and water that authorities urged people to find floatation devices and grab hammers to break out of their attics if necessary. At least five deaths were blamed on the storm.

“We are in the midst of a historic tragedy,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said in announcing the fatalities. He called the devastation “unprecedented and extensive.”

The fearsome Category 4 storm slowed almost to a standstill as it shredded roofs, hurled cars and forced even rescue crews to take shelter until the onslaught passed.

Officials said they received a “tremendous” number of calls from people in flooded homes. A radio station received more than 2,000 distress messages, including reports of a 5-month-old baby stranded on a roof and a grandmother with six grandchildren who cut a hole in a roof to escape rising floodwaters. Other reports involved a group of eight children and five adults stranded on a highway and two storm shelters that flooded.

The deaths in the Bahamas came after a previous storm-related fatality in Puerto Rico. At least 21 people were hurt in the Bahamas and evacuated by helicopters, the prime minster said.

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FBI: West Texas gunman ‘was on a long spiral of going down’

Odesa, Texas (AP) — The gunman in a West Texas rampage “was on a long spiral of going down” and had been fired from his oil services job the morning he killed seven people, calling 911 both before and after the shooting began, authorities said Monday.

Officers killed 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator on Saturday outside a busy Odesa movie theatre after a spate of violence that spanned 10 miles (16 kilometres), injuring around two dozen people in addition to the dead.

FBI special agent Christopher Combs said Ator called the agency’s tip line as well as local police dispatch on Saturday after being fired from Journey Oilfield Services, making “rambling statements about some of the atrocities that he felt that he had gone through.”

“He was on a long spiral of going down,” Combs said. “He didn’t wake up Saturday morning and walk into his company and then it happened. He went to that company in trouble.”

Fifteen minutes after the call to the FBI, Combs said, a Texas state trooper unaware of the calls to authorities tried pulling over Ator for failing to signal a lane change. That was when Ator pointed an AR-style rifle toward the rear window of his car and fired on the trooper, starting a terrifying police chase as Ator sprayed bullets into passing cars, shopping plazas and killed a U.S. Postal Service employee while hijacking her mail truck.

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8 killed in deadly California boat fire; 26 missing

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — A middle-of-the-night fire swept a boat carrying recreational scuba divers anchored near an island off the Southern California coast early Monday, leaving at least eight dead and little hope any of 26 others missing would be found alive.

Five of six crew members on the Conception escaped by jumping into an inflatable boat they steered to a nearby vessel.

Rescuers recovered four bodies just off Santa Cruz Island and spotted four others on the ocean floor near where the boat sank only about 20 yards (18 metres) from shore. They planned to continue searching for survivors, but Coast Guard Capt. Monica Rochester cautioned it was unlikely anyone else would be found alive.

“We will search all the way through the night into the morning, but I think we should all be prepared to move into the worst outcome,” she told an afternoon news conference.

The four bodies plucked from the ocean about 90 miles (145 kilometres) northwest of Los Angeles all had injuries consistent with drowning, said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Kroll.

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Dorian isn’t moving because the upper atmosphere is too calm

Powerful Hurricane Dorian has been going nowhere because nothing high up is making it budge.

It may sound strange when talking about a storm that once had 185 mph (298 kph) winds, but it’s actually been too calm high in the atmosphere. While this has been horrible for the Bahamas, where the storm’s pounding has been relentless, it may help spare Florida a bit, meteorologists said.

Usually the upper atmosphere’s winds push and pull hurricanes north or west or at least somewhere. They are so powerful that they dictate where these big storms go.

But the steering currents at 18,000 feet (5,486 metres) above ground have just ground to a halt. They are not moving, so neither is Dorian.

After reaching record-tying wind speeds on landfall in the Bahamas, the storm just stalled. Its eyewall first hit Grand Bahama Island Sunday night, and 18 hours later part of the eye still lingered there, meteorologists said. The hurricane centre late Monday called the storm “stationary” after several hours of crawling at 1 mph (1.6 kph).

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UK prime minister tells lawmakers to back his Brexit plan

LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson shot down the notion that he wanted an early election to secure Brexit, insisting Monday that it wasn’t the way to get a deal done.

Johnson decried parliamentary action set for Tuesday that is meant to delay Britain’s departure from the European Union, arguing that it would “chop the legs” out of the U.K. position. He spoke moments after lawmakers posted a copy of the proposed bill on Twitter, making clear that they would press the government to seek a delay if there’s no deal.

“Let’s let our negotiators get on with their work, without that sword of Damocles over their necks, and without an election, without an election,” he said. “I don’t want an election, you don’t want an election. Let’s get on with the people’s agenda.”

Opposition parties are pledging to challenge Johnson’s policy that the U.K. will leave the EU on Oct. 31 even if there is no deal. A no-deal Brexit is considered dangerous because it will sever decades of seamless trade with the EU single market of 500 million, Britain’s largest trading partner.

Despite Johnson’s comment, Downing Street said later Monday night that Johnson would call an early election if his opponents in Parliament manage to pass legislation that would block his plans for a departure from the EU by the Oct. 31 deadline. His goal would be to gain a majority in a new Parliament that would back his Brexit stance.

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Taliban attack Kabul as US envoy says deal almost final

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban claimed responsibility for a large explosion in the Afghan capital Monday night, just hours after a U.S. envoy briefed the Afghan government on an agreement “in principle” with the insurgent group that would see 5,000 U.S. troops leave the country within five months.

Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahmi said at least five civilians were killed and around 50 wounded, but said the toll could still rise because a number of homes were destroyed. He confirmed that the target of the blast was the Green Village compound, which houses several international organizations and guesthouses. The explosion sent a plume of smoke into the night sky over Kabul and caused a nearby gasoline station to burst into flames.

Another interior ministry official, Bahar Maher, told the local TOLO news channel that the blast was caused by a car bomb.

“It was a horrifying explosion,” a witness, Wali Jan, said. One hospital director, Dr. Nezamuddin Jalil, said the wounded included women and children. Associated Press video showed bloodied people streaming into a local hospital.

The Green Village, home to many foreigners and heavily guarded by Afghan forces and private security guards, has been a frequent target.

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Biden, Buttigieg say no compromises on overhauling gun laws

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, moderates who project themselves as pragmatic collaborators, are taking a no-compromise approach on the overhaul of the nation’s gun laws after the latest mass shooting.

Campaigning separately in eastern Iowa on Monday, the former vice-president and the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, say the minimum provisions include universal background checks, a ban on military-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition, and red flag laws to allow officials to confiscate firearms from dangerous people.

Biden told reporters before a Labor Day picnic in Cedar Rapids that inaction from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans is “disgraceful.” Asked if there’s room for negotiation, he declared: “None. This is one we have to just push and push and push and push and push.” Buttigieg also rejected compromise, saying after a campaign event in Cedar Rapids: “There is just no good faith in the congressional GOP nor, I believe, in the White House when it comes to dealing with this issue.”

Their comments come two days after a gunman toting an assault-style rifle went on a rampage in Odesa, Texas, killing seven people around town before being gunned down by police. The FBI said the shooter “was on a long spiral of going down.” This shooting occurred less than a month after two other high-profile mass shootings, in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

Biden’s and Buttigieg’s positions represent a rare case of absolutism from the two men. Despite their generational divide, at ages 76 and 37, both have staked their campaigns in part on calls for a more civil, productive governing process in Washington.

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Wife says Hart ‘going to be fine’ after car crash

NEW YORK (AP) — Comic actor Kevin Hart’s wife says he’s “going to be just fine” following a weekend car crash that left him with a major back injury.

Eniko Hart was questioned by a TMZ reporter while visiting him at the hospital Monday. She gave no details beyond that assurance, and the actor’s press representatives did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Hart was a passenger in a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda that went off a highway above Malibu in the early morning hours of Sunday. It rolled down an embankment, after police said the driver lost control while turning from a canyon road onto Mulholland Highway.

The 40-year-old Hart and the car’s driver, Jared Black, both had back injuries. Another passenger, 31-year-old Rebecca Broxterman, only complained of pain.

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Harry Potter removed from Tennessee Catholic school library

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Catholic school in Tennessee has removed the Harry Potter books from its library after the school’s priest decided they could cause a reader to conjure evil spirits.

In an email obtained by The Tennessean , the Rev. Dan Reehil of Nashville’s St. Edward Catholic School said he consulted exorcists in the U.S. and Rome who recommended removing the books.

Reehil wrote, “The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.”

Catholic Diocese of Nashville superintendent Rebecca Hammel said Reehil has the final say at his school.

Hammel said she thinks the books by J.K. Rowling are still on the shelves of other libraries in the diocese.

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’18 champ Osaka loses to Bencic at US Open; Nadal into QFs

NEW YORK (AP) — Naomi Osaka’s achy left knee didn’t let her serve without pain, so she didn’t practice that key part of her game leading into the U.S. Open. The knee also prevented her from covering the court and preparing for shots the way she’d like.

Those weren’t the only reasons that the No. 1-seeded Osaka’s 10-match winning streak at the U.S. Open and title defence ended Monday in the fourth round. Belinda Bencic’s clean, crisp strokes, struck with the ball still on the rise, contributed plenty to the outcome, too.

Osaka joined 2018 men’s champion Novak Djokovic on the sideline before the quarterfinals, exiting with a 7-5, 6-4 loss to the 13th-seeded Bencic under a closed roof at Arthur Ashe Stadium on a rainy afternoon. Djokovic stopped playing in his fourth-rounder Sunday night because of a problematic left shoulder.

“I honestly didn’t move well today. You know what I mean? I felt like I was always flat-footed. … The knee was a little bit annoying in the movement aspect,” Osaka said. “But I think that that’s something I should have overcome.”

As for her powerful serve, Osaka called it “inconsistent,” saying she hadn’t been working on it coming into the year’s last Grand Slam tournament “because I can’t really land on my leg that great.”