2A❚ FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019❚ USA TODAY NEWS
Dorian strengthened into a Category
1 hurricane Wednesday as it blew
through Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin
Islands before possibly making a bee-
line toward the U.S. southeast coast by
the holiday weekend.
Dorian’s exact path remains uncer-
tain, but the National Hurricane Center
said the threat of hurricane conditions
in Florida is increasing. The latest track
has Dorian as a Category 3 major hurri-
cane with 115 mph winds. It’s likely to hit
the east coast of Florida on Sunday or
Monday morning.
The storm was battering portions
of Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British
Virgin Islands on Wednesday as it
passed the islands, the weather service
said.
Both sets of Virgin Islands as well as
Vieques and Culebra – municipalities
off Puerto Rico’s mainland – were under
hurricane warnings, and Puerto Rico
stayed under hurricane watch, the
weather service said. A total of 100
flights to and from the main airport were
canceled.
The storm could bring landslides,
flash flooding and power outages to
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
President Donald Trump declared an
emergency Tuesday and ordered federal
assistance for Puerto Rico.
“Practically the entire island will be
under sustained tropical storm force
winds,” Roberto García, director of the
National Weather Service in San Juan,
told reporters.
At 2 p.m. Wednesday, Dorian had
sustained winds of 75 mph and was
moving to the northwest toward the is-
lands at 13 mph. The center of the stormwas over St. Thomas.
The storm is forecast to dump 4 to 6
inches of rain, with isolated patches up
to 10 inches, on southern and eastern
Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Vir-
gin Islands. Dorian is then expected to
move north into the southwestern At-
lantic, where forecasters say it could
gain even more power.
On Thursday, the storm should be
east of the Turks and Caicos and the
southeastern Bahamas. By Friday or
Saturday, forecasters expect it near or to
the east of the central and northwestern
Bahamas.
The hurricane center urged residents
in the northwestern Bahamas and parts
of Florida’s east coast to monitor the
storm and have a plan in place because
storm surge and hurricane-force winds
could punish the area.
Dorian already battered Barbados
and St. Lucia this week, downing trees
and power lines.
Contributing: The Associated PressDorian strengthens into hurricane
Could hit southeast coast
of the US by weekend
Ryan W. Miller, Doyle Rice
and Jorge L. Ortiz
USA TODAY
Caribbean
SeaAtlantic OceanMexico Atlantic OceaGa.S.C.BAHAMASPUERTO RICOSArea of
uncertaintyMon., 8 a.m.
Sun., 8 a.m.
Sat., 8 a.m.
Fri., 8 a.m.Wed., 2 p.m.Fla.
Thurs., 8 a.m.Florida braces for storm
SOURCE ESRI; NOAA; As of 2 p.m., WednesdayAll times EDTTropical stormTropical storm (39-73 mph) (39-73 mph)
Cat. 1Cat. 1 (74-95 mph) (74-95 mph)
Cat. 2Cat. 2 (96-110 mph) (96-110 mph)
Cat. 3Cat. 3 (111-129 mph) (111-129 mph)CategoriesInspector General Michael Missal, re-
ferred to a statement issued Tuesday
acknowledging his office is working
with law enforcement “to investigate
allegations of potential wrongdoing
resulting in patient deaths” at the hos-
pital. The FBI has referred inquiries to
the U.S. Attorney’s Office in West Vir-
ginia.
Shaw’s wife of nearly 59 years, Nor-
ma, told USA TODAY on Wednesday
that he had been feeling a little off
when they went to the VA hospital on
March 22, 2018. His blood pressure
was low, and he was tired and dehy-
drated.
He was admitted to the hospital,
where he was administered fluids. He
responded well, Norma Shaw said. “He
was walking the halls.”
But the morning of March 26, every-
thing changed. His blood sugar
crashed.
“It started going back up and then it
crashed again,” she said. “After that, he
just went downhill.”
Shaw would never recover. He died
on April 10, 2018 – a day after McDer-
mott, the other confirmed homicide.
Shaw’s family requested an autop-
sy. It was done the next day and con-
cluded he had died of heart failure.
The family thought that was the
end. They gathered to celebrate a life
well lived and a man well loved.
Shaw spent 28 years as a Air Force
communications specialist. He mar-
ried Norma in 1959. They had three
children, nine grandchildren and 22
great-grandchildren.
After retiring, he took a job at the
Clarksburg VA hospital mail room.
Serving veterans was a natural choice,
Norma said. So when federal investi-
gators showed up and told them his
death at the VA hospital was suspi-
cious, Norma Shaw said, “It just blewmy mind.”
The family granted permission to
have his body exhumed. The casket,
which contained five dried-out flow-
ers, was sent to Dover, where the sec-
ond autopsy was done in January.
The medical examiner found four in-
jection sites – two on the left arm, one
on the right and another on his right
thigh – that tested positive for insu-
lin, according to the report. Shaw had
no history of diabetes or prescribed
insulin.
The medical examiner corroborat-
ed the first autopsy’s findings that
Shaw had “significant natural dis-
ease,” including congestive heart
failure, but concluded insulin injec-
tion killed him.
“This cannot happen to another
family, ever,” daughter Linda Kay
Shaw said. “It’s got to be stopped.
Whoever’s accountable needs to be
held accountable, and that goes all
the way to the top.”
Contributing: Kevin JohnsonVA deaths
Continued from Page 1A
Greta Thunberg, the teenage cli-
mate activist sailing across the Atlan-
tic Ocean for a U.N. climate summit,
saw land for the first time early
Wednesday as she ended her two-
week voyage to New York.
Thunberg anchored off Coney Is-
land on Wednesday and planned to
come ashore at North Cove Marina
near the World Trade Center later in
the day, she said in a tweet.
“Land!! The lights of Long Island
and New York City ahead,” Thunberg
tweeted at 4 a.m.
Thunberg, 16, wouldn’t fly to New
York ahead of the United Nations
meeting on climate next month be-
cause of emissions from air travel. In-
stead, she and a crew traveled from
Plymouth in the United Kingdom on a
zero-emissions racing yacht across
the ocean.
Thunberg is set to speak at the
opening of the conference along with
Secretary-General António Guterres
and other youth representatives. The
conference of activists and world
leaders aims to identify concrete ac-
tions that can be taken immediately
to reduce warming, U.N. special envoy
for the event Luis Alfonso de Alba said
Tuesday.
It also comes on the heels of the G-
Summit in France during which cli-
mate was a subject among the world’s
most powerful nations and amid re-
cent fires in the Amazon rainforest.
President Donald Trump was the only
world leader not present at the ses-
sion on climate, biodiversity and the
health of oceans.
The United States will participate
in the U.N. summit, but it was not
clear to what extent, de Alba said.
Trump has previously called climate
change a “hoax” and said the U.S.
would withdraw from the 2015 Parisclimate accord.
Thunberg has become a leading cli-
mate activist. She spearheaded a global
demonstration in March in which tens
of thousands of students walked out of
school to protest inaction on climate
change, rising global temperatures that
threaten food production and rising sea
levels. She was nominated for a Nobel
Peace Prize, featured on Time maga-
zine’s cover and met the pope.
Contributing: Elizabeth Lawrence,
USA TODAY; The Associated PressTeen completes two-
week ocean voyage
Swedish climate activist Greta
Thunberg sailed across the Atlantic
Ocean for a U.N. climate summit.GRETA
THUNBERG/MEDIA HANDOUT/EPA-EFEShe set sail to spotlight
world’s changing climate
Ryan W. Miller and Olivia Sanchez
USA TODAYJACKSON, Miss. – There have been
at least three reports confirmed by offi-
cials of machines in two Mississippi
counties changing voters’ selections in
the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary
runoff.
In one case, the glitch was caught on
video.
On Tuesday morning, Facebook us-
er Sally Kate Walker posted a video
showing what appeared to be a touch-
screen machine changing someone’s
selection from Bill Waller Jr. to Tate
Reeves.
While officials confirmed problems
with three machines in two counties,
the Waller campaign said Tuesday eve-
ning that it had received more wide-
spread reports of the same issue.
The campaign said it received re-
ports of the same issue in Leflore, La-
mar, Pearl River, Lincoln, Washington,
Forrest and Scott counties.
Waller, a former state Supreme
Court chief justice, and Lt. Gov. Reeves
are in a runoff in the Republican pri-
mary to determine who will face Demo-
cratic Attorney General Jim Hood in the
November general election.
Reeves led the Aug. 6 balloting with
49% of the vote to Waller’s 33%.
In the footage posted to Facebook, a
voter clicks Waller’s name more than a
dozen times over the course of the 14-
second video. The vote automatically
changes to Reeves.
According to a comment Walker
made under the video, the malfunction
occurred at the Burgess voting precinct
in Oxford.
Anna Moak, a spokeswoman for the
Secretary of State’s Office, said officials
were made aware of the issue Tuesday
morning and contacted Lafayette
County. Officials there then dispatched
a technician to the precinct, she said.
The machine was a TSX machine,
Moak said, and is being replaced. Moak
pointed out that “machines are county-
owned and tested by local officials” and
“to our knowledge, only one machine
was malfunctioning.”
Nineteen votes were cast on that
machine prior to the error being detect-
ed, she said.
Mississippi
voting machines
change ballots
Sarah Fowler
USA TODAY NETWORK
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