2 killed in Cuba as Tropical Storm Imelda and Hurricane Humberto threaten Bahamas and Bermuda

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Authorities in the Bahamas closed most schools on Monday as Tropical Storm Imelda dropped heavy rain in the northern Caribbean, including over Cuba where two people died as a result of the storm.

The storm was located about 165 miles (270 kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island of the Bahamas, which is still recovering from Hurricane Dorian after it slammed into parts of the Bahamas as a devastating Category 5 hurricane in 2019.

Imelda had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph) and was moving northeast at 7 mph (11 kph). It was forecast to become a hurricane on Tuesday morning and spin out to open ocean, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

A tropical storm warning that had been in effect for parts of the extreme northwestern Bahamas, including Great Abaco, Grand Bahama Island and the surrounding keys, was lifted early Tuesday. Power outages were reported in some areas, with authorities closing government offices on affected islands and issuing mandatory evacuation orders for some islands over the weekend.

Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said late Monday that two people died after Imelda impacted eastern Cuba. On his X account, Marrero said the two people died in Santiago de Cuba province, but he didn’t give any details.

Earlier, state media reported that 60-year-old Luis Mario Pérez Coiterio had died in Santiago de Cuba following landslides in that area.

In Santiago de Cuba, flooding and landslides cut off 17 communities, according to the official newspaper Granma. More than 24,000 people live in those communities.

In Guantánamo, another impacted province, more than 18,000 people have been evacuated, according to reports from the state-run Caribe television channel.

Imelda was expected to drop 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain across the northwest Bahamas through Tuesday, and 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) across eastern Cuba.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Humberto, which weakened further to a Category 2 storm on Tuesday, churned in open waters, which forecasters had said would cause Imelda to abruptly turn to the east-northeast, away from the southeastern United States coast.

“This is really what’s going to be saving the United States from really seeing catastrophic rainfall,” said Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane expert for AccuWeather, a private U.S. weather forecasting company.

DaSilva said the two storms would draw closer and start rotating counterclockwise around each other in what's known as the Fujiwhara effect.

“It’s a very rare phenomenon overall in the Atlantic basin,” he said.

Humberto had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (155 kph). It was located about 275 miles (440 kilometers) west of Bermuda, moving north-northwest at 17 mph (28 kph). No coastal watches or warnings were in effect.

“This is going to be no threat to the United States,” DaSilva said.

Moisture from Imelda was expected to move up the Carolinas, with heavy rain forecast through Tuesday morning. The heaviest rains will be limited to the coastline, from Charleston in South Carolina to Wilmington in North Carolina, while Charlotte and Raleigh might receive only 1 to 2 inches (3 to 5 centimeters) of rain, he said.

The Carolinas might see wind gusts of 40 mph, but only along the coastline, DaSilva said, as he warned of dangerous surf and heavy rip currents all week.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said authorities were prepositioning search and rescue crews over the weekend.

In North Carolina, Gov. Josh Stein declared a state of emergency even before Imelda formed, while authorities on Tybee Island off the coast of Georgia handed out free sandbags to residents.

Even though Imelda was not making landfall in Florida, its impact was still felt.

At the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, crews found a couple of turtle hatchlings that rough surf had tossed ashore.

“We actually had two washbacks come in over the weekend," said Justin Perrault, the center’s vice president of research. “We may get more as the day goes along.”

He said typically beachgoers will see a hatchling resting in the seaweed and call the center for help.

Farther south in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Carl Alexandre exercised at the beach on Monday. He said he was grateful the storm was not heading toward South Florida, but that he would pray for those in the Bahamas.

“It’s great that we’re not having one as of right now,” Alexandre said. “And now we get to run in the Florida sun.”

Authorities in Bermuda hoped neither of the two storms would be a direct hit later in the week, though they were forecast to, at least, come close, with Imelda possibly passing within 15 miles (24 kilometers) as the season's soon-to-be fourth hurricane, Da Silva said.

“It’s going to be a double whammy for Bermuda, Humberto first and Imelda following close behind,” Da Silva said.

Michael Weeks, Bermuda's national security minister, urged residents to prepare, warning that there have been “some near misses this season regarding severe storms."

“Hurricane Humberto is a dangerous storm, and with another system developing to our south, every household in Bermuda should take the necessary steps to be prepared," he said.

Flights to and from the islands in the Bahamas were canceled, with airports expected to reopen after weather conditions improve.

Associated Press videographers Milexsy Durán in Havana, Cody Jackson in Juno Beach, Daniel Kozin in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and writer Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.

This Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, satellite image released by NASA shows Tropical Storm Imelda, left, and Hurricane Humberto in the Atlantic Ocean. (NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) via AP)

A surfer falls off of his board while taking advantage of the large waves kicked up by Tropical Storm Imelda as it passes offshore, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Satellite Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Brian and Carrie Archibald, of Gilbert, Ariz., make a selfie photo with their children at Blockhouse Beach before heading out on a Disney cruise as Tropical Imelda passes offshore, kicking up the surf, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, at Patrick Space Force Base, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Maiko Russell walks along the sand as Tropical Imelda passes offshore, kicking up the surf at Blockhouse Beach, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, at Patrick Space Force Base, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

A bicyclist rides along the beach with seagulls as Tropical Storm Imelda kicks up the surf, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Cocoa Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

This GOES-19 GeoColor satellite image taken Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025 and provided by NOAA, shows weather systems in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. (NOAA via AP)

This satellite image provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Humberto on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (NOAA via AP)

ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump would not be the first president to invoke the Insurrection Act, as he has threatened, so that he can send U.S. military forces to Minnesota.

But he'd be the only commander in chief to use the 19th-century law to send troops to quell protests that started because of federal officers the president already has sent to the area — one of whom shot and killed a U.S. citizen.

The law, which allows presidents to use the military domestically, has been invoked on more than two dozen occasions — but rarely since the 20th Century's Civil Rights Movement.

Federal forces typically are called to quell widespread violence that has broken out on the local level — before Washington's involvement and when local authorities ask for help. When presidents acted without local requests, it was usually to enforce the rights of individuals who were being threatened or not protected by state and local governments. A third scenario is an outright insurrection — like the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Experts in constitutional and military law say none of that clearly applies in Minneapolis.

“This would be a flagrant abuse of the Insurrection Act in a way that we've never seen,” said Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program. “None of the criteria have been met.”

William Banks, a Syracuse University professor emeritus who has written extensively on the domestic use of the military, said the situation is “a historical outlier” because the violence Trump wants to end “is being created by the federal civilian officers” he sent there.

But he also cautioned Minnesota officials would have “a tough argument to win” in court, because the judiciary is hesitant to challenge “because the courts are typically going to defer to the president” on his military decisions.

Here is a look at the law, how it's been used and comparisons to Minneapolis.

George Washington signed the first version in 1792, authorizing him to mobilize state militias — National Guard forerunners — when “laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed.”

He and John Adams used it to quash citizen uprisings against taxes, including liquor levies and property taxes that were deemed essential to the young republic's survival.

Congress expanded the law in 1807, restating presidential authority to counter “insurrection or obstruction” of laws. Nunn said the early statutes recognized a fundamental “Anglo-American tradition against military intervention in civilian affairs” except “as a tool of last resort.”

The president argues Minnesota officials and citizens are impeding U.S. law by protesting his agenda and the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Customs and Border Protection officers. Yet early statutes also defined circumstances for the law as unrest “too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course” of law enforcement.

There are between 2,000 and 3,000 federal authorities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, compared to Minneapolis, which has fewer than 600 police officers. Protesters' and bystanders' video, meanwhile, has shown violence initiated by federal officers, with the interactions growing more frequent since Renee Good was shot three times and killed.

“ICE has the legal authority to enforce federal immigration laws,” Nunn said. “But what they're doing is a sort of lawless, violent behavior” that goes beyond their legal function and “foments the situation” Trump wants to suppress.

“They can't intentionally create a crisis, then turn around to do a crackdown,” he said, adding that the Constitutional requirement for a president to “faithfully execute the laws” means Trump must wield his power, on immigration and the Insurrection Act, “in good faith.”

Courts have blocked some of Trump's efforts to deploy the National Guard, but he'd argue with the Insurrection Act that he does not need a state's permission to send troops.

That traces to President Abraham Lincoln, who held in 1861 that Southern states could not legitimately secede. So, he convinced Congress to give him express power to deploy U.S. troops, without asking, into Confederate states he contended were still in the Union. Quite literally, Lincoln used the act as a legal basis to fight the Civil War.

Nunn said situations beyond such a clear insurrection as the Confederacy still require a local request or another trigger that Congress added after the Civil War: protecting individual rights. Ulysses S. Grant used that provision to send troops to counter the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists who ignored the 14th and 15th amendments and civil rights statutes.

During post-war industrialization, violence erupted around strikes and expanding immigration — and governors sought help.

President Rutherford B. Hayes granted state requests during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 after striking workers, state forces and local police clashed, leading to dozens of deaths. Grover Cleveland granted a Washington state governor's request — at that time it was a U.S. territory — to help protect Chinese citizens who were being attacked by white rioters. President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to Colorado in 1914 amid a coal strike after workers were killed.

Federal troops helped diffuse each situation.

Banks stressed that the law then and now presumes that federal resources are needed only when state and local authorities are overwhelmed — and Minnesota leaders say their cities would be stable and safe if Trump's feds left.

As Grant had done, mid-20th century presidents used the act to counter white supremacists.

Franklin Roosevelt dispatched 6,000 troops to Detroit — more than double the U.S. forces in Minneapolis — after race riots that started with whites attacking Black residents. State officials asked for FDR's aid after riots escalated, in part, Nunn said, because white local law enforcement joined in violence against Black residents. Federal troops calmed the city after dozens of deaths, including 17 Black residents killed by local police.

Once the Civil Rights Movement began, presidents sent authorities to Southern states without requests or permission, because local authorities defied U.S. civil rights law and fomented violence themselves.

Dwight Eisenhower enforced integration at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas; John F. Kennedy sent troops to the University of Mississippi after riots over James Meredith's admission and then pre-emptively to ensure no violence upon George Wallace's “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” to protest the University of Alabama's integration.

“There could have been significant loss of life from the rioters” in Mississippi, Nunn said.

Lyndon Johnson protected the 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery after Wallace's troopers attacked marchers' on their first peaceful attempt.

Johnson also sent troops to multiple U.S. cities in 1967 and 1968 after clashes between residents and police escalated. The same thing happened in Los Angeles in 1992, the last time the Insurrection Act was invoked.

Riots erupted after a jury failed to convict four white police officers of excessive use of force despite video showing them beating a Rodney King, a Black man. California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush for support.

Bush authorized about 4,000 troops — but after he had publicly expressed displeasure over the trial verdict. He promised to “restore order” yet directed the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation, and two of the L.A. officers were later convicted in federal court.

President Donald Trump answers questions after signing a bill that returns whole milk to school cafeterias across the country, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)