CNN 2011-09-03

 First up today, an ultimatum from the group that appears to be taking control of Libya’s government. The head of the National Transitional Council says that towns that are still loyal to long-time Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi have until this Saturday to surrender peacefully. Otherwise, he says, rebels will attack them.

 
As of Tuesday, there was still no news of where Moammar Gadhafi might be hiding. But several members of his family, including his wife, two sons and one daughter, have escaped across Libya’s western border to Algeria. One of that country’s officials said Gadhafi’s family was allowed into Algeria on humanitarian grounds.
 
Turning our attention now to the war in Afghanistan, today is the last day of August, and the month wraps up with a tragic milestone in the conflict. This has been the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since the war there started. 
 
According to CNN estimates, 66 American troops were killed in Afghanistan during August. Nearly half of those deaths were on August 6th, when 30 service members died after their U.S. helicopter was shot down.
 
The U.S. first sent troops in Afghanistan in October 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the U.S. Nearly 10 years later, this is now the longest military conflict the U.S. has ever been involved in.
 
CNN has put together something called "Home and Away". You can find a link to it in the "Spotlight" section on cnnstudentnews.com. The interactive is focused on all of the U.S. troops who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
It lets you connect them with their hometowns in the United States, and it gives people the chance to share memories and messages about these men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice.
 
Is this legit?
 
Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are all the same type of storm.
 
This is true. The events are given different names in different parts of the world.
 
Those storms can all bring the kind of devastation that many Americans are struggling through after Hurricane Irene. Yesterday, millions of people didn’t have power. In some parts of Vermont, residents were stranded. 
 
Some of that state’s famous covered bridges, like you see here, were just wiped out by floodwaters that rushed through Vermont. And this is a time-lapse video from NASA. It’s satellite imagery of Irene. 
 
You can see the storm work its way through the Caribbean, then it moves off the coast of Florida and, at that point, it turned north and started making its way up the East Coast, all the way up through New England. 
 
Officials say it’s going to take a while to figure out how much damage Irene caused. They are giving some estimates, though. The government says the damage from wind alone will be more than a billion dollars. And the Small Business Administration estimates $10 billion in damages.
 
Despite all the destruction, Irene ended up not being as powerful as forecasters expected. CNN’s John Zarrella looks at the science behind predicting these storms.
 
Max Tucker owns a bar and grill just outside Philadelphia. It flooded. Tucker says, no way did the government overreact to Irene.
 
I think we all got really lucky. It could have been a lot worse. I’d rather be safe than sorry, and I think -- I think they did -- they did what was necessary. I think always better safe than sorry.
 
This is where the information comes from that helps keep you safe rather than sorry, the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
 
Here, the science of forecasting is digested, regurgitated, all that science, everything that supercomputers were computing told forecasters Irene would be a major hurricane when it hit North Carolina.
 
At least in the guidance we were looking at, there was no indication of anything that would cause the storm to weaken. So we thought we would have a category 3 storm at landfall.
 
Instead, Irene was a category 1, the weakest. So what happened? Simple. Hurricane forecasters say they’re pretty good at telling where a storm will hit. But technology and science aren’t there yet when it comes to forecasting how strong a storm will be.
 
Despite all the modern-day advances, they just don’t fully understand what makes these storms tick. And in every storm, Read sees a curve ball.
 
In this case, it was one where it went downhill. In Charlie, just a few years ago, it was one that went uphill. Neither case did we see that coming, and that’s my measure of the fact that we have a long way to go.
 
Aside from the might of the wind, Read says the forecast was on the money, heavy rainfall, storm surge up the east coast, and inland flooding. For portions of the northeast, the rain was a one in 100-year event.
 
In Vermont, is anyone saying there was an overreaction?
 
I do not think that there’s any blame to go around. I think that, frankly, those that got hit had their hearts broken and understand how serious this storm was.
 
It’s estimated overall damage could reach $10 billion or more. If that happens, Irene will rank as one of the top 15 costliest hurricanes ever. John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.