Category 4: Hurricane Ida slammed into the toe of Louisiana as a Category 4 storm yesterday with winds up to 150 miles per hour. The wind hit 70 in the streets of New Orleans and the entire city was without power.

  Hundreds of thousands of people fled to higher ground and up to one million were left without power in the early hours of the storm.

  It’s been 10 years since the devastating hurricane Katrina and Ida is a test of the levees, flood gates, and pumping systems that have been installed since.

  “There is no doubt that the coming days and weeks are going to be extremely difficult for our state and many, many people are going to be tested in ways that we can only imagine,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference.

  This morning the storm was arcing slightly northeast toward Jackson, Mississippi. 

Over the Horizon: A US missile strike in Kabul yesterday took out what the military said was a suicide vehicle loaded down with explosives. President Biden had warned that a terrorist attack against the city’s airport was “highly likely.”

  This morning reports say 10 civilians, including children, were killed in the attack. The Washington Post reports that, “The dead were all from a single extended family and were getting out of a car in their modest driveway when the strike hit a nearby vehicle.”

  Describing it as  “a self-defense unmanned over-the-horizon airstrike,”  U.S. Central Command spokesman, Capt. Bill Urban said, “We are confident we successfully hit the target. Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.”

  “Over the horizon” is the newly vogue term in the world of warfare that means warfare by remote control. It’s a video game with real explosions.

  This morning, several rockets were fired toward the airport but they were intercepted by an air defense system.  

Homeward Bound: The US military returned the bodies of all 13 service members killed in Thursday’s Kabul suicide attack to Dover, Delaware. President Biden was there with the families.

 The dead range in age from 20 to 31 with an average age of just over 22. Eleven were Marines, one was a Navy medic, and another was in the Army. Two of them were women. Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23, of Sacramento, California, had just recently posted a picture of herself holding an Afghan refugee baby.

  Another attack in Kabul is not out of the question. With just about 36 hours left in the evacuation effort, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said yesterday that, “This is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission, these last couple of days.” 

  The US says more than 100,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan since it fell to the Taliban. If the operation stays on the promised scheduled, it’s all over by midnight tomorrow.

Live Free and Die: Caleb Wallace, a leading anti-mask campaigner in Central Texas who had claimed the coronavirus was a hoax and that government was imposing “Covid tyranny,” has died of Covid-19.

  Wallace had been in a hospital and then hospice care since July 30^th. Earlier in July, the 30-year-old Wallace had organized a “Freedom Rally” for people who were “sick of the government being in control of our lives.” He and his followers believed that mask and vaccination requirements were a violation of personal liberty.

  Wallace was the father of three daughters, ages 5, 3, and 1, with a fourth girl due next month. 

  His wife, Jessica, issued a statement before his death saying, “To those who wished him death, I’m sorry his views and opinions hurt you. I prayed he’d come out of this with a new perspective and more appreciation for life. I can’t say much more than that because I can’t speak for him.”

  She said she and her husband were opposites on this issue. She’s vaccinated and wears a mask when necessary. But she said she believes her husband was correct saying he had the right to make his own decisions.

The Obit Page: Actor Ed Asner, who starred on television as the irascible news editor Lou Grant, has died at age 91.

  Grant broke out as the gruff counterpart to Mary Tyler Moore’s cheerful character on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” about a local television newsroom. He reprised the character for the one-hour spinoff, “Lou Grant.”

  Asner went down in television history during the first episode of Mary Tyler Moore, telling Moore’s character Mary Richards, “You’ve got spunk … I hate spunk.” He won five Emmy Awards playing that character.

  Asner later served as a somewhat militant president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1981 to 1985. He had a busy television and movie career, but to anyone who recognized him, he was Lou Grant. 

Butch Cassidy: Brazilian authorities say that as many as 50 bank robbers took part in a complex heist in Araçatuba, northwest of Sao Paolo, blocking roads with burning vehicles and placing explosive devices across the city. Three banks were targeted as the robbers took over the center of the city.

  Video taken from a rooftop shows getaway cars with hostages strapped to the roof and hood as gunfire echoed through the streets. Police say one robber and two other people were killed and that two suspects were captured.

  Large scale raids like this are on the rise in Brazil. Brazilians call this the New “Cangaço”, referring to a term first used to describe the banditry that plagued Brazil in the 1920s and 1930s.

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