Hurricane Nate is now expected to be a Category 2 hurricane when it makes landfall on the US central Gulf Coast in the coming hours.

US president Barack Obama promised today to stand with the people of the Gulf Coast “until they are made whole” after the oil spill catastrophe.

Intent on showing firm command of the deepening crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, US President Barack Obama flew to coastal Louisiana today for his second in-person update on the country’s most devastating oil spill.

On the same day that New Orleans residents marked the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s wrath, another storm strengthened into a hurricane miles away and threatened to hit the US Gulf Coast once again.