Hurricane Dorian weakens to category-1 storm

Hurricane Dorian weakened to a Category 1 storm early Friday as it closed in on the coast of North Carolina, US meteorologists said.Dorian was packing maximum sustained winds of near 90 mph (150 kilometers per hour), down from 100 miles per hour, according to the latest update from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center."Slow weakening is expected during the next few days. However, Dorian should remain a powerful hurricane as the center moves near or along the coast of North Carolina," it said.Earlier in the week, Dorian flattened homes and wiped out neighborhoods in the Bahamas, leaving at least 30 people dead. It then closed in on the southeastern coast of the United States, where five deaths have been blamed on the storm so far.Before it lost some of its strength early Friday, Dorian caused flooding in parts of the Carolinas and spawned a number of tornadoes, officials said. More than 343,000 people were left in the dark in South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, according to poweroutage.us.