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A team was deployed to interstate 40 where a large number of fish were hosed off the highway after the hurricane dropped eight trillion gallons of water on North Carolina. Greg Lovell has called his Hampstead, North Carolina, neighborhood home for 15 years, but only while battling floodwaters after Hurricane Florence has he met other members of his community facing the same struggles (Sept. 21) (Elko dily Free Press wrote). Benetta White and David Lloyd slogged through waist-deep water filling their yard to escape Hurricane Florence's latest life-threatening punch to a town in the Carolinas (AP reported). “Hurricane Florence caused massive flooding in our area and allowed the fish to travel far from their natural habitat, stranding them on the interstate when waters receded” (the Penderlea Fire Department said in The Independent). There are concerns about the odour from the dead and decaying large number of fish.

According to AFP, a new high-speed rail link between Hong Kong and mainland China was launched Sunday; a multi-billion-dollar project that critics say gives away part of the city's territory to an increasingly assertive Beijing. Costing over $10 billion and taking more than eight years to build, the system aims to transport more than 80,000 passengers daily between the Asian financial center of 7 million people and the neighboring manufacturing hub of Guangdong province (Newyork Post). Critics say the railway is a symbol of continuing Chinese assimilation of Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with guarantees of widespread autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland, including an independent legal system (Arab News).