People get ready: Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency on Thursday as Louisiana prepared for a direct hit from Tropical Storm Nate, possibly as a hurricane. The governor says 1,300 National Guard troops are being mobilized, with 15 headed to New Orleans to monitor the fragile pumping system there. With forecasts projecting landfall in southeast Louisiana Sunday morning, Edwards urged residents to ready for rainfall, storm surge and severe winds—and to be where they intend to hunker down by “dark on Saturday.” Read more.
A higher place: The University of Florida will pay tribute to Gainesville-native Tom Petty, who died Monday at the age of 66, during the LSU-Florida game Saturday, The Washington Post reports. At the end of the third quarter, after the Florida band plays “We Are the Boys from Old Florida,” Petty’s 1989 hit, “I Won’t Back Down,” will be played over the loudspeakers. Petty played on the Florida campus only twice over the last 25 years, in 1993 and 2006. A mural went up in Gainesville after news of his death broke, calling Petty the city’s “No. 1 son.” Read more.
Sending a message: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group of mostly young activists pushing for a global treaty to ban the cataclysmic bombs. The $1.1-million award comes amid heightened tensions over both North Korea’s aggressive development of nuclear weapons and President Donald Trump’s persistent criticism of the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program. The prize committee wanted “to send a signal to North Korea and the U.S. that they need to go into negotiations,” Oeivind Stenersen, a historian of the peace prize, tells The Associated Press. Read more.
