Spinning Down: Hurricane Dorian, now reduced to a Category One, is drenching the Carolina coast with high winds and heavy rain this morning. At 7 am it was centered about 30 miles west-southwest of Cape Hatteras, according to the National Hurricane Center.

  Dorian has already dumped up to 10 inches of rain along the coast between Charleston and Wilmington.

  About 370 customers have been left without power in three states. Air traffic is slowed. At least 350 flights have been cancelled and 285 delayed.

  In the rubble of the Bahamas, 30 people are confirmed dead and thousands are unaccounted for days after Dorian passed over. “Literally hundreds, up to thousands, of people are still missing,” said Joy Jibrilu, director general of the country’s tourism and aviation ministry. Body bags, additional morticians and refrigerated coolers to store bodies are being transported to Abaco island, one of the areas hardest hit. 

Smoking Ruins:An Oakland, California jury acquitted one man and was unable to reach a verdict on a second accused involuntary manslaughter in the infamous “Ghost Ship” warehouse fire that killed 36. 

  The building that had been craved up into artist lofts and apartments was gutted by a fire than many of its tenants and guests during a party were unable to escape. The building was laced with illegally laid power cables using stolen electricity.

  Derick Almena, 49, was the master tenant and leaseholder, and Max Harris, 29, had acted as the manager and rent collector. Ten jurors wanted to convict Almena and two were opposed, resulting in a hung jury in his case. Friends and family of the victims were shocked by the decisions.

The Obit Page:The ruthless Robert Mugabe, considered the father of independent Zimbabwe who was the country’s first prime minister and later its dictator, has died at age 95. was 95. Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe from 1980 until he was ejected from office in 2017.

  Mugabe assumed that Zimbabwe was his to rule. In a speech before the African Union in 2016, he said he would remain at the helm “until God says, ‘Come.’” He nearly did.

The News Roundup:Howard Schultz, the former head of the Starbucks coffee chain who made noise about running for president as an independent, announced that he’s not going to run. He said in his announcement, “Not enough people today are willing to consider backing an independent candidate because they fear doing so might lead to re-electing a uniquely dangerous incumbent president.” — A Houston man is believed to be the first criminally charged with possession of a bump stock on his rifle, a device banned in March. A bump stock allows an assault rifle to fire like a machine gun.— Aaron Rodgers threw for the game’s only touchdown as Green Bay beat rival Chicago 10-3 in the NFL’s season opener. That means it’s only a couple of months until baseball season is over.

Up in Vapor:The death of a second person has been connected to vaping in what may be a developing health epidemic. The person who has not been identified died in Oregon after vaping with a marijuana product.

 The FDA says there have been 215 reported illnesses in 25 states.

   Investigators there say they are now zeroing in on high levels vitamin E as a possible culprit. They say lab tests detected high levels of vitamin E in cartridges of cannabis vaping products used by people who vaped and suffered serious lung damage.

  According to a statement from the New York State Department of Health. “At least one vitamin E acetate containing vape product has been linked to each patient who submitted a product for testing.”

The Weather Underground:President Trump pulled Fox Newsreporter John Roberts into his office to insist that he had not been wrong about claiming that Alabama was in danger from Hurricane Dorian. “He stressed to me that forecasts for Dorian last week had Alabama in the warning cone,” Roberts wrote. “He insisted that it is unfair to say Alabama was never threatened by the storm.”

  For a brief moment Alabama had been listed as a state that might feel some effects of Dorian, but that quickly changed and Trump ran with it for days, even having Alabama crudely drawn into the forecast with a pen on a map he showed to reporters.

  When challenged on it, Trump claimed that reports countering him were “fake news.”

  Trump “seemed to agree that the forecast track had moved — but he was adamant that at some point, Alabama was at risk,” Roberts wrote in an account of the meeting. “He also reminded that on occasions in the past, forecast tracks have changed dramatically.”

  It’s true. Hillary Clinton had been forecast to become president.

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