It’s Friday, Sept. 6, 2019. Let’s start here.
1. Rebuilding the Bahamas
As Hurricane Dorian bears down on North Carolina, the Bahamas are facing a massive rebuilding effort after the storm pummeled the island with rain and wind gusts that reached 200 miles an hour.
ABC News’ Marcus Moore is in Nassau and tells “Start Here” that crews had to use bulldozers to clear streets of debris.
2. Dating on Facebook
Facebook officially launched its new dating service yesterday at an event in New York City.
ABC News’ Mary Kate Burke got to try “Facebook Dating” and tells the podcast that the social network is “hyper aware” of privacy concerns that some users have.
3. Buffalo bishop under fire for recordings
Bishop Richard Malone, the embattled spiritual leader of the Diocese of Buffalo, is defending himself after a second whistleblower came forward on Wednesday, armed with hours of secret recordings that show the bishop navigating what he called “a true crisis situation” for his administration.
ABC News’ Pete Madden tells “Start Here” that “the questions here could go all the way to the Vatican.”
“Start Here,” ABC News’ flagship podcast, offers a straightforward look at the day’s top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn or the ABC News app. Follow @StartHereABC on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for exclusive content and show updates.
Elsewhere:
‘Rest in eternal peace’: Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean liberator who ruled the African country as a dictator for nearly 40 years, has died at the age of 95.
‘A concerning message’: A Houston man has been indicted on federal charges of possessing a bump stock, marking the first known case in the country since the Trump administration banned the devices.
‘In light of similar denials’: Attorneys for Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre have asked to interview Prince Andrew in either the U.S. or the U.K., in a letter to him addressing the authenticity of a photo including him, Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell.
From our friends at FiveThirtyEight:
While the ability for a candidate to generate big crowds is certainly nice, FiveThirtyEight reports that you should ignore any candidate, surrogate or media outlet that tells you that large crowd sizes mean that the polls are underestimating a candidate’s support.
Doff your cap:
Reading can open a world of joy and imagination for students, and one North Carolina principal wanted to spread that moment of happiness to them on a special day — their birthdays.
Glenn Cook, principal of Pleasant Ridge Elementary in Gastonia, North Carolina, came up with the idea to gift each student with a book on their birthday. With about 900 students attending Pleasant Ridge, this is no easy task, but Cook says he’s ready to “go big or go home.”
“I don’t have a lot of kids books,” said Cook. “So I put it out on Facebook, I wanted to see if any of my friends had any books that they needed to clean off their bookshelves at home and it kind of spiraled from there.”
The amount of feedback Cook received was phenomenal.
“We’re probably sitting at 450 maybe 500 books,” he said. There are stacks of books occupying space all over his office.
“I want to make sure there’s not one single kid that’s going under the radar, I want to make sure that I’m actually saying hey to every kid, talking to every kid, celebrating every kid,” Cook added. “I’m never going to stop collecting books.”
