USA Today: Hurricane Irene plowed through the warm waters of the Caribbean on Tuesday, threatening to bring howling winds, torrential rain and destructive waves to a 1,000-mile swath of the Atlantic Coast. Officials from Florida to the Carolinas urged residents along the entire East Coast to prepare for a powerful storm that was aiming for landfall this weekend in North Carolina and threatening to disrupt Sunday's dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C.