Tuesday’s top story: five dead as Dorian inflicts ‘extreme destruction’ on Bahamas. Plus, the myth of the free speech crisis

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Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories.

Storm expected to pass ‘dangerously close’ to Florida

At least five people are dead in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, stalled over the Caribbean islands on Monday. The storm battered the island of Grand Bahama for more than 12 hours, with winds of up to 155mph and storm surges some 18ft above normal tide level. The category 5 storm has since weakened to a category 3 and is expected to move north-west on Tuesday, sparing the US mainland but passing “dangerously close” to the Florida coast.

‘Historic tragedy.’ The five fatalities reported were on the Abaco Islands in the north of the Bahamas. The country’s prime minister, Hubert Minnis, called Dorian “a historic tragedy” and its devastation “unprecedented”.

Alabama safe. Donald Trump’s response has been confusing, with the US president twice claiming – falsely – that Dorian would hit Alabama. He also suggested, for at least the fifth time in two years, that he had never heard of a category 5 hurricane.

At least 25 killed in California boat fire

Play Video 1:05 California boat fire kills at least 25 people – video report

Twenty-five people have died and another nine are still missing after a scuba diving boat was engulfed in flames and sank off the coast of southern California in the small hours of Monday morning. Five crew members escaped from the 75ft boat, Conception, which was moored near Santa Cruz Island when the blaze broke out at around 3am. But the US Coast Guard said 33 passengers and one other crew member had been found dead or remained missing on Monday.

Naming the dead. The passengers are believed to have been from across California and probably beyond. Authorities said the first four bodies recovered were of two adult males and two adult females, but DNA tests would be needed to identify them.

Barr drafting new death penalty law for mass shooters

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Odessa and Midland residents at a vigil for victims of Texas’s latest mass shooting. Photograph: Joel Angel Juarez/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

The US attorney general, William Barr, has been drafting new legislation to speed up the implementation of the death penalty in federal cases involving mass murder, officials revealed on Monday. The news came after a weekend shooting rampage in the west Texas towns of Midland and Odessa that left seven people dead, the state’s second mass shooting in August alone. The proposal will be presented by the administration as part of its effort to tackle gun violence, in the absence of any actual gun control measures.

Victims and survivors. Victoria Bekiempis hears stories from those close to the victims of the west Texas shooting – and from some of those who survived.

Great Lakes floods fuelled by climate crisis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Floods in Detroit in 2014. Photograph: Joshua Lott/Getty Images

Detroit, Chicago, Buffalo, Duluth and Minnesota have all been struck by floods in recent years, bringing unprecedented chaos to the shores of the Great Lakes. As Tom Perkins reports, the lakes’ water level has risen steadily over the last half-decade and reached record levels during spring and summer 2019, when their depths ranged from 14in to nearly 3ft above long-term averages. Climate scientists say the cause is clear: Earth’s rising temperatures.

Evaporation threat. The Great Lakes basin holds 90% of America’s freshwater. While increased rainfall has raised water levels, in a warmer future scientists say the lakes will face the opposite threat and shrink through evaporation.

Cheat sheet

At least 16 people have been killed in a Taliban bomb attack in Kabul, hours after a US envoy briefed the Afghan government on a deal “in principle” with the group, which would see 5,000 US troops leaving Afghanistan within five months.

The New York Times has scrapped its plans to sponsor one of the world’s biggest oil industry conferences, following pressure and protests from climate activist groups including Extinction Rebellion.

The former US secretary of state John Kerry has said the choice between climate action and economic growth is a false one, describing those who present it as such as “neanderthals who don’t want to believe in the future”.

The teenage climate campaigner Greta Thunberg has spoken about her Asperger’s diagnosis, saying she sees the condition as a “superpower”. Responding to critics, she added: “When haters go after your looks and differences … you know you’re winning!”

Must-reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A 2017 survey found a “wide cross-section” of Americans experience online abuse, but the majority is directed towards minorities. Illustration: Guardian Design

How overblown fears of censorship normalised hate speech

Speech has never been more free or less intermediated, says Nesrine Malik. As a columnist for the Guardian, she has experienced firsthand the growing torrent of online abuse that is directed most forcefully at women and minorities. So why, she asks, do we keep being fed the myth that free speech is under assault?

The hellish climate future for Las Vegas

Its climate already close to unbearable without air conditioning, Las Vegas is the fastest warming city in the US. And if climate change continues apace, scientists say the city will likely experience 96 days of heat above 100F annually by the end of the century, with a disproportionate impact on the poor. Dan Hernandez reports.

Trump’s escalating attacks on LGBT rights

The Trump administration has attacked LGBT rights in healthcare, employment, housing, education, commerce, the military, prisons and sports. Now the justice department is pushing to make it legal to fire people for being gay or transgender. As one activist tells Sam Levin, “this is a critical point in history”.

An eye-opening documentary on racism in America

The Emmy-nominated virtual reality documentary Traveling While Black depicts the trauma of a people traversing a country that has yet to accept them – and the safe spaces that did. “If you are not a person of color and you watch this film, you walk away transformed,” its director tells Dream McClinton.

Opinion

Boris Johnson says Britain will leave the European Union on 31 October, come what may. But if he follows through on a no-deal Brexit, says Anand Menon, far from resolving Britain’s negotiations with the rest of Europe, it will only make them more difficult.

There’s a stark difference between the relative clarity of what no deal means in legal terms and what it might actually herald in practice. It is not a neat way of resolving a complex problem. On the contrary, it is a way of rendering a complex problem infinitely more so.

Sport

After outclassing the teenage sensation Coco Gauff in the third round of the US Open, defending champion Naomi Osaka was herself defeated 7-5, 6-3 in the fourth on Monday, by her Swiss rival Belinda Bencic.

In 1968, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar boycotted the US Olympic basketball team to protest against the overt racism and police aggression that was causing deadly riots across the country. Athletes have only fleeting moments to proclaim their opinions and be heard, he says – and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo could offer several such moments.

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