Hurricane Maria: The storm plowed straight into Dominica last night as a powerful Category 5 with sustained winds of 160 mph and creating “mind boggling” damage, according to the country’s prime minister.

Roosevelt Skerrit, Dominica’s prime minister, wrote on Facebook that “So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace.”

The National Hurricane Center describes Maria as “potentially catastrophic.” It’s tracking toward French Guadeloupe, Montserrat, the US Virgin Islands and dead center in Puerto Rico.

Islands already devastated by Irma — Antigua, Barbuda, and St. Maarten among them — are under a tropical storm warning.

Hurricane Donald: President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver his first address to the UN General Assembly today. The world wonders what he’ll say.

Speaking yesterday in New York, Trump called for a reorganization of the UN. “In recent years, the United Nations has not reached its full potential due to bureaucracy and mismanagement,” Trump said, scolding the UN for its burgeoning budget.

He wasn’t quite as tough as he was during his campaign when he dismissed the UN as weak and impotent.

Trump is also unhappy with the bill the US has to pay for the UN. America pays a quarter of the UN operating budget, and 28 percent of the peacekeeping costs, but we haven’t paid yet this year.

The Russia Thing: US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, CNN reports according to their sources. If true, the monitoring of a campaign officer is highly unusual.

CNN says the taps continued into this year, including a period when Manafort was still talking to President Trump. CNN says that according to three sources, “Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign.”

The network says the information has been handed over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who’s reported to be running a high-speed investigation. The NY Times says, “Dispensing with the plodding pace typical of many white-collar investigations, Mr. Mueller’s team has used what some describe as shock-and-awe tactics to intimidate witnesses and potential targets of the inquiry.”

Sunk: The Navy fired two senior commanders in the Pacific as a result of the two fatal destroyer collisions in recent months.

The announcement came a day before the top US Navy officer and the Navy secretary are scheduled to go to Capitol Hill for a hearing on the ship crashes.

Fired were Rear Adm. Charles Williams, commander of Task Force 70, which includes the aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers in the 7^th Fleet, and Capt. Jeffrey Bennett, commander of the destroyer squadron that had the two accidents.

Nation: Three people died and 16 were injured yesterday morning when a tour bus smashed into a New York MTA bus in the borough of Queens. The dead were a pedestrian, a passenger on the city bus, and the charter driver. The wreckage was described as horrendous. — In the fourth night of protests following the acquittal of a white former St. Louis police officer in the killing of a black motorist, police used a technique called “kettling” last night to block off, trap, and arrest 100 protesters and journalists for “failing to disperse.” The cops were heard chanting “Whose streets? Our streets.” — Saying he wants privacy, Donald Trump Jr. has given up his Secret Service protection.

Broken Toys: Toys “R” Us, the giant chain of toy stores losing a fight with internet sales, has filed for bankruptcy after going $5 billion into debt. The company says all its stores will remain open.

It’s Just Lunch:  The NY Times published a story about how White House lawyers are clashing over how to handle the Russia investigation. They’re debating whether to be open or to defend presidential privilege.

It was quite a scoop, and it turns out that NY Times investigative reporter Kenneth Vogel got it because he sat down to lunch at BLT Steak in Washington within hearing distance of a loud conversation between White House lawyers Ty Cobb and John Dowd. Their conversation included juicy references to documents locked in a safe and efforts to push out Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Fred Barbash wrote about the story for The Washington Post and said, “Trump and his aides have complained bitterly and often about leaks, including leaks from the White House.

But who needs leaks when lunch reservations will suffice?

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