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SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — Millions along the East Coast breathed a little easier Friday after forecasters said Hurricane Joaquin would probably veer out to sea instead of joining up with a drenching rainstorm that is bringing severe flooding to parts of the Atlantic Seaboard.
For days, various computer models showed Joaquin hitting North Carolina's Outer Banks, New Jersey, New York's Long Island or Cape Cod, Massachusetts. But on Friday, with Joaquin over the Bahamas, U.S. National Hurricane Center director Rick Knabb said the hurricane was no longer expected to make a direct hit.
"The models have become much more in agreement, and we are pretty confident the hurricane is going to pass well offshore of the East Coast of the U.S.," he said.
That didn't mean the danger was over.
With the soil already saturated and roads flooded in places, East Coast states braced for more downpours over the weekend from an unusually heavy rainstorm. Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia were under states of emergency.
The rainstorm was blamed for at least one death in South Carolina, where heavy rain has fallen for days.
As Joaquin swirled toward the U.S., many had feared the dangerous Category 4 hurricane would combine with the rainstorms and cause even worse ruin.
On Friday, the hurricane tore off roofs, uprooted trees and unleashed heavy flooding in the Bahamas, and the U.S. Coast Guard said it was searching for a missing 735-foot cargo ship with 33 people aboard.
As for the rainstorm in the U.S., its fatal unpredictability was shown when a Thursday morning downpour dumped 4 inches on Spartanburg, South Carolina, causing flash floods that submerged several cars. Sylvia Arteaga, 56, was trapped under a railroad bridge and drowned while driving home after working the night shift.
Hattie Palafox, a middle-school teacher and family friend, described Arteaga as a "very sweet, very kind, very loving" mother of 17- and 20-year-old daughters. Palafox said she had discussed the forecast with Arteaga earlier this week, and she hadn't seemed concerned.
Authorities around the region also warned that the soaked soil could cause trees to fall, and they said that might have played a role in the death of a passenger whose vehicle was hit by a tree on Interstate 95 near Fayetteville, N.C.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The candidates atop the GOP presidential field are ramping up political attacks aimed at Muslims, a move designed to appeal to hardline conservatives. But party elders worry that escalating anti-immigrant rhetoric could cost Republicans the White House in 2016.
The aggressive words, in particular from front-runners Donald Trump and Ben Carson, have exacerbated a widening rift between the GOP's pragmatic and ideological wings as the party tries to avoid losing a third consecutive presidential election.
His relationship with the nation's Hispanic community already strained, Trump vowed on Wednesday to deport any Syrian refugee taken in by the U.S. Most likely would be Muslim, and Trump warned they could be Islamic State militants in disguise.
"If I win, they're going back," the billionaire businessman said.
Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, launched a petition on Thursday challenging the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group's tax-exempt status, escalating his ongoing rift with the U.S. Muslim community.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations last month called for Carson to quit the presidential race after he said a Muslim should not serve as president. He has since clarified his position, stating he wouldn't support a radical Muslim who did not support the Constitution. And in a Thursday radio interview, Carson said the same standard should apply to a Supreme Court justice.
He said Islam is "a lifestyle" that he'd "need to know about" before making an appointment to the nation's highest court.
"If I were the one nominating such a person, I would spend a good deal of time looking at their background and seeing if it is consistent with the kinds of standards that we expect from such a position," Carson told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, adding that a nominee would have to publicly reject Islamic law.
There are currently no Supreme Court vacancies and no presidential candidates adhere to Muslim law, although some conservatives have repeatedly tried to link President Barack Obama to Islam. He is a Christian.
Carson's fortunes have surged since he first said he wouldn't support a Muslim president. He raised roughly $700,000 and added more than 100,000 Facebook friends in the 36 hours after making the comment, said campaign manager Barry Bennett.
The focus on Islam comes as Republicans work to repair a strained relationship with the nation's surging Hispanic population, a critical voting bloc in presidential elections. The U.S. Muslim population is a fraction of the size of the Hispanic community, yet the party's overall tone could complicate broader outreach efforts.
Political observers in both parties agree, among them, the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney. More than anything, he said of his lessons from his failed campaign, is that Republicans must do a better job at connecting with minority voters.
"I think it's been unfortunate that some of the rhetoric has so clouded the picture that some people think we're anti-immigrant. Nothing could be further from the truth," Romney said, prompting audible laughs of disbelief from the crowd gathered at a Washington conference on Wednesday.
"Hey guys. My party is pro-legal immigration. Massively," Romney pleaded and later added, "The rhetoric has been terribly unfortunate in many respects."
Foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal cited a sharp shift in the GOP's present-day tone compared to 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and former President George W. Bush, who visited a mosque shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to demonstrate religious tolerance.
"Islamophobia is now an industry," Jebreal said. "In the long run it will hurt the Republican Party and it will hurt the country in general."
Yet there is some evidence that anti-Muslim rhetoric resonates with voters in both parties. A June Gallup poll found that 54 percent of Republicans would not vote for a well-qualified Muslim nominee from their own party; 39 percent of independents and 27 percent of Democrats said the same.
The U.S. Muslim population is growing, according to a May survey by the Pew Research Center, which found the group remains extremely small, representing just under 1 percent of the U.S. population.
Meanwhile, some Republican presidential candidates have adopted a softer tone.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whom conservatives have been slow to embrace, said Trump should show "some sensitivity" to the Syrian refugee crisis.
"We have an obligation to make sure that people coming here are legitimate, but send them all back? To a hellhole?" Bush said Wednesday.
Democrats are trying to capitalize, with 2016 front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton casting Trump as the poster boy for the Republican Party and someone who has been "trafficking in prejudice and paranoia." She criticized his comments about Syrian refugees following a campaign stop in Massachusetts.
"I don't know what country he thinks he's living in," Clinton said Thursday in an interview with WHDH-TV in Boston. "We have a long and proud tradition of accepting refugees from conflict."
Meanwhile, Romney downplayed Trump's chances in 2016.
"I will support the Republican nominee. I don't think that's going to be Donald Trump," Romney charged.
Trump fired back Thursday, writing on Twitter that Romney let his party down in 2012. "Should've won," Trump tweeted. "He choked!"
JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press
ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) —
This small town in southern Oregon's timber country strongly supports gun rights, and that hasn't changed for the county's top law enforcement officer since a gunman killed nine people at a local community college.
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin told CNN on Friday that his position on gun control had not shifted following Thursday's shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, which is in a politically conservative region west of the Cascade Range.
He spoke out against state and federal gun control legislation last year, telling a legislative committee that mandating background checks for private, person-to-person gun sales would not prevent criminals from getting firearms.
Hanlin also sent a letter to Vice President Joe Biden in 2013, after a shooter killed 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school. Hanlin said he and his deputies would refuse to enforce new gun-control restrictions "offending the constitutional rights of my citizens."
The community, where people like to hunt deer, elk and bear, echoes his push to protect gun rights.
"I carry to protect myself — the exact same reason this happened," said Casey Runyan, referring to the Thursday's shooting. Runyan carries a Glock 29 automatic pistol everywhere he goes.
"All my friends agree with me. That's the only kind of friends I have," said Runyan, a disabled Marine Corps veteran.
Retired U.S. Army nurse Donice "Maggie Rose" Smith, who also hosts a talk show on Internet radio, said she and her husband, a retired Army captain, chose Douglas County for their retirement because of a low crime rate and strong local support for First and Second Amendment rights.
J.C. Smith said barring people from carrying guns on campus made it particularly vulnerable to a "lone wolf" attack.
"With current world events, (armed people) would keep the ground safer," he said.
The school has a policy of no guns on campus and did not feel the need for an armed security presence, Umpqua Community College interim President Rita Cavin said.
"This is an anomaly and a tragedy," she said of the shooting.
At a candlelight vigil for the victims of the shooting, former student Sam Sherman said Roseburg was a "poor town, a mill town." Oregon's timber industry went into a tailspin 25 years ago as protection for the northern spotted owl reduced national forest logging and automation took over jobs.
"People don't generally aspire to greater things here," he said. "So having a place you can go to do that is a big deal. For something that terrible to happen at such a small school is frustrating."