GREENVILLE, N.C. — A state trooper shot and killed an armed man during a search for flood victims in a tense and dispirited North Carolina, and thousands more people were ordered to evacuate as high water from Hurricane Matthew pushed downstream Tuesday, two days after the storm blew out to sea.
Matthew’s death toll in the U.S. climbed to 33, more than half of them in North Carolina, in addition to the more than 500 feared dead in Haiti.
Tens of thousands of people, some of them as much as 125 miles inland, have been warned to move to higher ground since the hurricane drenched the state with more than a foot of rain over the weekend during a run up the East Coast from Florida.
In the hard-hit town of Lumberton, along the bloated Lumber River, sporadic looting was reported, and a North Carolina trooper searching for people trapped by the floodwaters killed a man who confronted officers with a gun Monday night, police said.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. is weighing what military response it should take against Yemen-based Houthi rebels, who U.S. officials say launched two missiles at American warships in the Red Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. is still investigating the unprecedented incident, including the exact location of the missile launches. Asked if the U.S. was developing targets for a possible retaliatory strike, he said he could not confirm that.
He added that “we will make sure that anybody who interferes with freedom of navigation or anybody who puts U.S. Navy ships at risk understands that they do so at their own peril.”
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey can’t be excluded from a possible operation to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul, Turkey’s president said Tuesday, telling Iraq’s leader to “know his place.”
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks were likely to add to tensions between the two neighbors, which are key U.S. partners in the fight against the Islamic State group.
In a speech delivered in Istanbul, Erdogan also said Turkish troops wouldn’t withdraw from a base near Mosul, saying the Turkish army wouldn’t take orders from Baghdad. Turkey is training anti-IS fighters to help retake Mosul from the extremist group.
Turkey-Iraq relations became strained after Ankara sent troops late last year to the region of Bashiqa.
Associated Press
