Hurricane Laura Makes Landfall as a Category 4 Storm Near Cameron, Louisiana. By the time it arrived at 1 a.m., the hurricane was the most powerful to hit the U.S. this year, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. It has since been downgraded to a Category 3 storm and is currently centered 30 miles north-northwest of Lake Charles and moving north at 15 mph. An “unsurvivable storm surge” is still expected, with “catastrophic damage” stretching along the Texas coastline to Port Arthur. The storm surge is predicted to reach as far as 40 miles inland.
Irving Man Suspected of Killing His Two Teenage Daughters Has Been Captured. Yaser Abdel Said has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list since 2014 in connection with the murder of his daughters in 2008. On New Year’s Day, Said took the two teenagers, Amina and Sarah, for a ride in his taxi. They were later found dead in the cab from multiple gunshot wounds, and Said disappeared along with his shotgun and his savings. He was arrested yesterday in Justin, Texas, and will be transferred to Dallas County for prosecution.
Yesterday’s COVID-19 Tally Included Nine Deaths and 578 New Cases. The backlog accounts for 424 of the new cases, so County Judge Clay Jenkins says we’re moving in the right direction. But the seven-day average of positive tests statewide is at 13.5 percent, still higher than the 10 percent benchmark for concern set by Gov. Greg Abbott. Health officials also warned that the rate of infection among school-age children is high. Over the first two weeks of August, 531 children between the ages of 5 and 18 tested positive for COVID-19. Nearly half of those cases were high-school students, most of which are believed to be DISD students based on their reported ZIP codes of residence. And TCU nearly doubled their number of positive cases between Monday and Wednesday, going from 111 to 257 in two days.
Luka May Be Zac Crain’s Adopted Son, But Pedro Could Be Yours. WFAA ran its first “Wednesday’s Child” segment in six months yesterday, and they profiled a very cool 12-year-old named Pedro who suffered “unimaginable” abuse as a child and has been in foster care for the past five years. He loves football and basketball, and has one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen.
