Melissa grows into Category 3 hurricane while unleashing torrential rain in the north Caribbean

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Hurricane Melissa strengthened into a major Category 3 hurricane late Saturday, unleashing torrential rain and threatening to cause catastrophic flooding in the northern Caribbean, including Haiti and Jamaica.

Melissa became a hurricane on Saturday and then intensified rapidly into a major storm. U.S. forecasters have issued a hurricane warning for Jamaica and say Melissa could further strengthen into a Category 4 storm.

“Life-threatening and catastrophic flash flooding and landslides are expected in portions of southern Hispaniola and Jamaica into early next week,” the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Melissa was centered about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica late Saturday night, and about 280 miles (455 kilometers) west-southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It had maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and was moving west at 3 mph (6 kph), the hurricane center said.

The slow-moving storm was expected to drop torrential rain, up to 25 inches (64 centimeters), on Jamaica, according to the hurricane center. Up to 35 inches (89 centimeters) of rain could pound the Tiburon peninsula in southwestern Haiti.

The Cuban government on Saturday afternoon issued a hurricane watch for the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo and Holguin.

The erratic and slow-moving storm has killed at least three people in Haiti and a fourth person in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.

“Unfortunately for places along the projected path of this storm, it is increasingly dire,” Jamie Rhome, the center’s deputy director, said earlier on Saturday. He said the storm will continue to move slowly for up to four days.

Melissa is forecast to hit eastern Cuba early Wednesday, where up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) could fall in some areas.

Authorities in Jamaica said on Saturday that the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston will be closed at 8 p.m. local time. It did not say whether it will close the Sangster airport in Montego Bay, on the western side of the island.

More than 650 shelters were activated in Jamaica. Officials said warehouses across the island were well-stocked and thousands of food packages prepositioned for quick distribution if needed.

“I urge Jamaicans to take this weather threat seriously,” said Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness. “Take all measures to protect yourself.”

Haitian authorities said three people had died as a consequence of the hurricane and another five were injured due to a collapsed wall. There were also reports of rising river levels, flooding and a bridge destroyed due to breached riverbanks in Sainte-Suzanne, in the northeast.

“The storm is causing a lot of concern with the way it’s moving,” said Ronald Délice, a Haitian department director of civil protection, as local authorities organized lines to distribute food kits. Many residents are still reluctant to leave their homes.

The storm has damaged nearly 200 homes in the Dominican Republic and knocked out water supply systems, affecting more than half a million customers. It also downed trees and traffic lights, unleashed a couple of small landslides and left more than two dozen communities isolated by floodwaters.

The Bahamas Department of Meteorology said Melissa could bring tropical storm or hurricane conditions to islands in the Southeast and Central Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands by early next week.

Melissa is the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had predicted an above-normal season with 13 to 18 named storms.

Associated Press writer Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report.

This NOAA satellite image taken at 11:40 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, shows Tropical Storm Melissa in the Central Caribbean Sea. (NOAA via AP)

People place plastic tarps over their tents ahead of expected rain at a shelter for families displaced by gang violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

Children play in a street flooded by rains caused by Tropical Storm Melissa in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)

Children play in a street flooded by rains caused by Tropical Storm Melissa in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)

People wade through a street flooded by rains caused by Tropical Storm Melissa in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two senators from opposite parties are joining forces in a renewed push to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, an effort that has broad public support but has repeatedly stalled on Capitol Hill.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida on Thursday plan to introduce legislation, first shared with The Associated Press, that would bar lawmakers and their immediate family members from trading or owning individual stocks.

It's the latest in a flurry of proposals in the House and the Senate to limit stock trading in Congress, lending bipartisan momentum to the issue. But the sheer number of proposals has clouded the path forward. Republican leaders in the House are pushing their own bill on stock ownership, an alternative that critics have dismissed as watered down.

“There’s an American consensus around this, not a partisan consensus, that members of Congress and, frankly, senior members of administrations and the White House, shouldn’t be making money off the backs of the American people,” Gillibrand said in an interview with the AP on Wednesday.

Trading of stock by members of Congress has been the subject of ethics scrutiny and criminal investigations in recent years, with lawmakers accused of using the information they gain as part of their jobs — often not known to the public — to buy and sell stocks at significant profit. Both parties have pledged to stop stock trading in Washington in campaign ads, creating unusual alliances in Congress.

In the House, for example, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida is trying to bypass party leadership and force a vote on her own stock trading bill. Her push with a discharge petition has 79 of the 218 signatures required, the majority of them Democrats.

House Republican leaders are supporting an alternative bill that would prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from buying individual stocks but would not require lawmakers to divest from stocks they already own. It would mandate public notice seven days before a lawmaker sells a stock. The bill advanced in committee on Wednesday, but its prospects are unclear.

Gillibrand and Moody, meanwhile, are introducing a version of a House bill introduced last year by Reps. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, and Seth Magaziner, a Democrat from Rhode Island. That proposal, which has 125 cosponsors, would ban members of Congress from buying or selling individual stocks altogether.

Magaziner and other House Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, wrote in a joint statement Wednesday that they “are disappointed that the bill introduced by Republican leadership today fails to deliver the reform that is needed.”

The Senate bill from Gillibrand and Moody would give lawmakers 180 days to divest their individual stock holdings after the bill takes effect, while newly elected members would have 90 days from being sworn in to divest. Lawmakers would be prohibited from trading and owning certain other financial assets, including securities, commodities and futures.

“The American people must be able to trust that their elected officials are focused on results for the American people and not focused on profiting from their positions,” Moody wrote in response to a list of questions from the AP.

The legislation would exempt the president and vice president, a carveout likely to draw criticism from some Democrats. Similar objections were raised last year over a bill that barred members of Congress from issuing certain cryptocurrencies but did not apply to the president.

Gillibrand said the president “should be held to the same standard” but described the legislation as “a good place to start.”

“I don’t think we have to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” Gillibrand said. “There’s a lot more I would love to put in this bill, but this is a consensus from a bipartisan basis and a consensus between two bodies of Congress.”

Moody, responding to written questions, wrote that Congress has the “constitutional power of the purse” so it's important that its members don't have “any other interests in mind, financial or otherwise.”

“Addressing Members of Congress is the number one priority our constituents are concerned with,” she wrote.

It remains to be seen if the bill will reach a vote in the Senate. A similar bill introduced by Gillibrand and GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in 2023 never advanced out of committee.

Still, the issue has salience on the campaign trail. Moody is seeking election to her first full term in Florida this year after being appointed to her seat when Marco Rubio became secretary of state. Gillibrand chairs the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm.

“The time has come," Gillibrand said. “We have consensus, and there’s a drumbeat of people who want to get this done.”

FILE -Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., speaks during the confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's choice to be director of the FBI, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

FILE - Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., leaves the Senate chamber after voting on a government funding bill at the Capitol in Washington, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)