Midday Roundup: Hurricane Joaquin strengthens as it nears U.S.

Weather warnings. Hurricane Joaquin is growing stronger by the day as it roars over the mid-Atlantic. The storm became a Category 3 overnight, and it has the East Coast in its crosshairs. Eric Blake with the National Hurricane Center expects Joaquin to be just offshore by Saturday, likely as a Category 4 storm. “Now whether the storm kind of takes a turn more toward the north or northwest or moves to the northeast, we don’t really know yet.” Either way, senior hurricane specialist Michael Brennan said those living along the East Coast should brace for heavy rain and possible flooding. The Carolinas already are saturated from a heavy rainstorm that caused flash flooding and claimed at least one life in Spartanburg, S.C. Joaquin could make landfall anywhere from the North Carolina coast all the way to Massachusetts.

Conflicting objectives. Russia began bombing Syrian rebels Wednesday and asked U.S. forces to stand down to avoid accidental engagements. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declined, saying American air power would continue bombing Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) targets in the country. Rather than asking the United States to get out of the way, Russia should join the coalition of nations fighting the powerful terror group, Kerry said. If Russia’s engagement means it genuinely wants to defeat ISIS, “then we are prepared to welcome those efforts and to find a way to deconflict our operations and thereby multiply the military pressure on ISIL,” Kerry said. But the White House doesn’t believe Russia really wants to destroy ISIS. “Russia is not flexing its muscles when it comes to Syria,” spokesman Josh Earnest said, pointing to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interest in saving Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. “Right now, they are trying to prop up an investment that’s about to go south.” Earlier today, Russian warplanes bombed a camp run by rebels trained by the CIA.

Taliban rout, part two. Afghan officials claim they have retaken the town of Kunduz from Taliban insurgents. But pockets of fighting appear to remain as U.S.-backed special-forces units try to root out fighters who have taken refuge among the civilian population. Video shot shortly after officials declared the city freed showed an Afghan soldier taking down the white Taliban flag from the city center and replacing it with the national banner. Although the insurgent takeover was fairly short-lived, it left its mark. Kunduz has no water or power, shops are closed, and hospitals are not functioning, according to the country’s head of parliament. U.S. warplanes and helicopters aided the ground campaign effort, dropping bombs on strategic locations.

Prison reform. A bipartisan group of senators this morning announced a criminal justice reform bill that would reduce mandatory minimum prison sentences for some nonviolent drug offenses. Lawmakers have been working on the bill, dubbed the Criminal Justice Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, for months. The legislation also calls for provisions that would allow well-behaved prisoners to knock time off their sentences. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws became popular in the 1980s amid an attempt to “get tough” on crime. But critics say they prevent judges from doing their jobs in adjudicating cases and determining punishment based on mitigating factors. “Minimum mandatory penalties are not always bad,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told The Daily Signal. “Some of them work just fine. The problem is that some of them impose sentences that are plainly excessive in relation to the behavior they are trying to punish.”

Click bait. The U.S. State Department released another batch of Hilary Clinton’s emails last night, and they reveal that conservatives’ fears of potential security breaches were spot-on. According to messages exchanged between the former secretary of state and her staffers, Russian hackers made five attempts to break into the private server Clinton used throughout her time as head of the State Department. It’s not clear whether any of those attempts were successful, although it seems unlikely because the phishing scams were disguised as parking tickets, and Clinton has not driven herself in decades. But Clinton has always maintained her private server was just as safe as the government email systems she declined to use, allegedly for convenience sake.

WORLD Radio’s Mary Reichard contributed to this report.