News from the note…

A round up of the day’s news that might be of interest to you.

This is an OPEN THREAD,  folks. Chat about any of the stories listed, share links to stories that caught your eye today, and generally have a good time discussing whatever you want.

Florence punishes Carolinas with torrential rain, flooding; eight dead

Tropical Storm Florence dumped “epic” amounts of rain on North and South Carolina as it trudged inland on Saturday, triggering dangerous flooding, knocking out power in nearly 900,000 homes and businesses, and causing at least eight deaths.

Florence’s intensity has diminished since it roared ashore along the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast on Friday as a hurricane. But its slow march over the two states, crawling west at only 2 miles per hour (3 km per hour), threatens to leave large parts of the region deluged in the coming days.

Reuters

US plans to pay $20 million to help Mexico deport migrants

The US government wants to pay millions of dollars to help Mexico deport thousands of migrants who have entered the country hoping to reach the United States.

According to a notification State Department officials sent to Congress, $20 million would be used to cover the cost of bus and plane tickets to deport migrants from Mexico to their countries of origin.

The funding would be transferred from the State Department to the Department of Homeland Security as part of a “migrant removals pilot” that could result in the deportation of up to 17,000 people from Mexico, the notification said.

CNN

‘There never is a strategy’: Trump confronts twin Manafort and Kavanaugh crises

President Donald Trump spent Friday confronting the deadly landfall of Hurricane Florence — only to have that disaster eclipsed by the revelation that his former campaign manager cut a cooperation deal with special counsel Robert Mueller and that a growing #MeToo crisis is surrounding his Supreme Court nominee.

The trifecta culminated a week of the president careening from one fiasco to another, before he had fully recovered from the publication of damning excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new White House account “Fear” and an op-ed published anonymously by The New York Times claiming that senior staff are working to undermine him.

Politico

Anita Hill responds to sexual misconduct allegation against Brett Kavanaugh

Anita Hill called on the federal government to implement a “fair and neutral” way to investigate sexual misconduct complaints after allegations surfaced against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh this week.

Hill, who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of workplace sexual harassment during his confirmation hearing back in 1991, said she has seen “firsthand what happens when such a process is weaponized against an accuser and no one should have to endure that again.”

Then a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had been sexually harassed by Thomas when she worked with him at the Education Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas denied the allegations and he was confirmed to the bench.

A woman is accusing Kavanaugh of assaulting her when they were high schoolers in the early 1980s, and she relayed the claim in a letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who received the note in July and referred it to the FBI on Wednesday.

CNN

Manafort Plea Deal Casts New Scrutiny on Lobbyists He Recruited

 In 2012, Paul Manafort had a problem. He was seeking a way to bolster the interests of his pro-Russian Ukrainian clients in Washington, but he did not want to set off federal lobbying rules that would force the disclosure of detailed information about the funding for, and targets of, that work to the Justice Department.

His solution, federal prosecutors say, was to help those clients create a nonprofit group in Brussels. He then recruited a pair of top lobbying firms to represent the group, an arrangement he hoped would allow the evasion of the disclosure rules.

But even some people at the lobbying firms he recruited saw the nonprofit group, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, as a sham, according to new evidence laid out by prosecutors when they unveiled a plea agreement with Mr. Manafort in federal court in Washington on Friday.

New York Times 

Sheriff: US Border Patrol agent suspected of killing 4 women

A U.S. Border Patrol agent suspected of killing four prostitutes was arrested early Saturday after a fifth woman managed to escape from him and notify the authorities, law enforcement officials said, describing the agent as a “serial killer.”

Juan David Ortiz, an intel supervisor for the Border Patrol, fled from state troopers and was found hiding in a hotel parking lot in Laredo at around 2 a.m. Saturday, Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar said at a news conference in the border city about 145 miles (235 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio. He said investigators have “very strong evidence” that he is responsible for the deaths of the four women.

AP

Kitten named Survivor clings to owner amid flood rescue

People aren’t the only ones being pulled from floodwaters in parts of eastern North Carolina inundated by Florence .

Rescuers are helping pets to safety, too, including one aptly named kitten: Survivor.

The News & Observer in Raleigh reported that Robert Simmons Jr. was among those seeking refuge Friday afternoon in New Bern, a city near the coast that’s bordered by two rivers and has been swamped with water.

AP