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Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder. Forecasters are warning that Tropical Storm Debbie will remain a major flood threat in the southeast for the next several days. The storm is moving slowly and the National Hurricane Center says that it will dump record-setting rain in coastal Georgia and South Carolina. Debbie made landfall along Florida's Gulf Coast after forming over abnormally warm ocean water, as NPR's Rebecca Hersher reports.
Debbie gained strength over the Gulf of Mexico before it made landfall in Florida. The water in that part of the ocean is warmer than usual. In fact, the sea surface temperatures across the North Atlantic have been in record-breaking territory for more than a year.
Human-caused climate change is primarily to blame. That extra heat helps storms suck up more moisture, and all that moisture falls as heavy rain once the storm hits land. Forecasters warn Debbie could cause dangerous flash flooding across parts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina in the coming days. Flooding from rain kills more people in the U.S. than any other hurricane-related hazard. Rebecca Herscher, NPR News.
According to the tracking website PowerOutage.us, more than 175,000 customers are without power, the bulk of them in Florida. Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic Party's official presidential nominee. The party held a virtual roll call through the weekend to confirm her nomination and vote and concluded Monday evening, as NPR's Eric McDaniel reports. Vice President Harris, 59, becomes the first black woman and first Asian-American candidate to ever lead a major party ticket in the United States.
The 4,700 delegates to the Democratic National Convention began selecting their nominee for president on Thursday via electronic ballots. That's more than two weeks before the party's convention begins in Chicago, where the process would traditionally occur.
The so-called virtual roll call is designed to clear a procedural hurdle in the state of Ohio, where state Republicans set an August 7 deadline for candidates to qualify for the ballot. That deadline has since been changed, but Democrats chose to go ahead with their virtual process to avoid any legal ambiguity. Eric McDaniel, NPR News, Washington. A one-time attorney for former President Donald Trump has entered into a cooperation agreement with Arizona's Attorney General on the state's fake electors case.
From member station KJZZ, Wayne Schatzke reports. Jenna Ellis is one of 18 individuals facing charges for allegedly scheming to undermine President Biden's victory in Arizona in 2020 and deliver the state's 11 electoral votes to Trump. Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays announced that Ellis has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and is willing to testify in court. In exchange, nine felony charges filed against her will be dropped.
In a statement, Mays says Ellis, who has already agreed to cooperate with a similar investigation in Georgia, will provide invaluable insights. Attorneys for Ellis continue to claim she was not involved in the fake elector scheme and say the agreement shows her willingness to tell the truth. For NPR News, I'm Wayne Shutsky in Phoenix. And you're listening to NPR News.
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