As Hurricane Harvey headed for the coast of Texas Friday night, a storm of news was also breaking.
Within a period of a few hours, President Donald Trump pardoned controversial former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and directed the Pentagon to place an indefinite ban on transgender individuals joining the military.
Meanwhile, White House adviser Sebastian Gorka was ousted, and it was revealed that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Michael Flynn was involved in an effort to obtain Hilary Clinton's deleted emails.
Plus, North Korea launched projectiles into its eastern sea.
You'd certainly be forgiven for missing some of last night's news. Here's what to know:
Trump pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
On Friday night, Trump granted a presidential pardon to the controversial former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was accused of encouraging racial profiling of Latinos in Arizona.
Arpaio lost a re-election bid last year. A lawsuit alleged that his office was racially profiling Latino people and detaining them only on suspicion that they were in the country illegally. In 2011, a judge ordered Arpaio to stop the practice but the sheriff refused, insisting the procedures were legal.
He was convicted last month of criminal contempt of court for violating the terms of the order.
The pardon was issued as Hurricane Harvey, at the time a Category 4 storm, was barreling toward the Texas coast. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of "using the cover of the storm" to issue the divisive pardon.
Senator Chris Murphy called the move, "basically a big middle finger to America."
Kelli Ward, Jeff Flake's primary challenger in Arizona, applauded the pardon.
Sebastian Gorka is out at the White House.
A Trump administration official confirmed on Friday night that adviser Sebastian Gorka, a former Breitbart staffer and ally of ousted advisor Steve Bannon, no longer works at the White House.
Earlier reports suggested that Gorka resigned, but a White House official said in a statement obtained by Business Insider that wasn't what happened. Gorka touted himself as a national security adviser to the president, according to the New York Times, but was not on the National Security Council.
His departure came a week after Bannon left the administration to return to Breitbart, and followed a spate of firings and resignations at the White House.
In his departing letter, published on pro-Trump website The Federalist, Gorka told Trump he could better serve the president's agenda from the outside.
Trump directed the Pentagon to ban transgender individuals joining the military indefinitely.
Following up on his Twitter announcement that transgender individuals would no longer be allowed to serve in the military, Trump issued a directive to the Pentagon to ban transgender individuals from joining the military indefinitely.
The possibility that transgender service members who are already in uniform could stay in the military seems to remain open, however.
In June 2016, the Obama administration declared that transgender soldiers in the US forces could serve openly. The deadline for determining whether transgender people would be allowed to join the military was set for July 2017. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis delayed that too January 1, 2018, and Trump's new instruction essentially extends that delay indefinitely.
In his initial tweets in July, Trump suggested that transgender people serving in the military would cause "tremendous medical costs and disruption."
However, an analysis by the RAND Corporation found that the financial costs of allowing transgender people to serve would be very low, considering the military's overall healthcare costs.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider