Evacuations ordered as Hurricane Arthur gains strength, heads for the Carolinas

Tropical Storm Arthur reached hurricane strength early Thursday, with winds of 75 mph as it churned north toward the Carolinas. Arthur, the first named storm of the 2014 Atlantic season, was 190 miles south-southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, at 4:50 a.m. on Thursday. Hurricane warnings have been issued for parts of the North Carolina coast. Local authorities have ordered a mandatory evacuation on the Outer Banks' Hatteras Island and a voluntary evacuation on Ocracoke Island. Read more at NBC News.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.