Happening Today: Hurricane Maria, UN General Assembly, Toys ‘R' Us, Sean Spicer

Get the top headlines of the day in your morning briefing from NBC 4 New York, Monday through Friday. Sign up for our newsletter here.

Hurricane Maria Batters Dominica as Category 5 Storm

Hurricane Maria weakened to a Category 4 storm overnight but bounced back to a Category 5, remaining "extremely dangerous" as it moved over the small island of Dominica and continued through the Caribbean. As of 5 a.m. Tuesday, Maria had maximum sustained winds of 160 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was about 205 miles southeast of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and was heading west-northwest at 9 mph. The storm was following a path Monday night that could take it on Tuesday near many of the islands recently devastated by Hurricane Irma and then head toward a possible direct strike on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands by Wednesday. Fierce winds and driving rain lashed the mountainous island for hours, causing flooding and tearing roofs from homes.

President Trump Gearing Up to Address U.N.

Elected on the nationalist slogan "America first," President Trump will use his debut address to the U.N. General Assembly to argue that individual nations should act in their own self-interest, yet rally together when faced with a common threat such as North Korea. Trump, who has warned of "fire and fury" if North Korea does not back down, was expected to argue that the dangers posed by Kim Jung Un's pursuit of a nuclear weapons program should unite all nations. And he planned to issue not just warnings to North Korea but also rebukes to states that have enabled Pyongyang, though it was unclear if he would criticize China by name. Addressing the General Assembly is a milestone moment for any president, but one particularly significant for Trump, a relative newcomer to foreign policy who has at times rattled the international community with his unpredictability. He has pulled the Unites States out of multinational agreements, considered shrinking the U.S. military footprint in the world and deployed bombastic language on North Korea that has been criticized by other world leaders. Trump frequently belittled the U.N. as a candidate and some within his White House believe the U.N acts as a global bureaucracy that infringes on the sovereignty of individual countries. But the president was expected to stand before world leaders and a global audience and declare that U.N. members, acting as a collection of self-interested nations, should unite to confront global dangers, according to aides previewing his speech.

Toys R Us, With $5B in Long-Term Debt, Files for Chapter 11 Reorganization

Toys R Us, the big box toy retailer struggling with $5 billion in long-term debt, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection ahead of the key holiday shopping season, saying it will continue its normal business operations. The Wayne, New Jersey-based company announced it was voluntarily seeking relief through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond — and that its Canadian subsidiary would be seeking similar protection through a Canadian court in Ontario as it seeks to reorganize. Toys R Us said court-supervised proceedings will help restructure the outstanding debt and set the stage for long-term growth. The company announcement also said separate operations outside the U.S. and Canada are not part of the filings. And it emphasized that its stores worldwide will remain open and that it will continue to work with suppliers and sell merchandise. Dave Brandon, company chairman and CEO, said that the court filing provides a path for the company and its investors to work with its debtholders and other creditors to work on restructuring the debt beleaguering the pioneering toy retailer.

States Ask Insurers to Prioritize Non-Opioid Pain Treatment

Attorneys general representing the majority of states asked health insurers to encourage pain treatment through means other than prescriptions for opioid painkillers, which are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths a year in the U.S. The top government lawyers in 35 states signed a letter to the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans. The group, which also includes attorneys general for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, asked insurers to make coverage of non-opioid treatments such as physical therapy and massage a priority. The letter targets prescribing powerful drugs for chronic pain, a practice several studies have found is not effective. The insurers group did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Opioid-related overdoses have hit especially hard in the Appalachian states. On Monday, the attorney generals from two of them, Kentucky and West Virginia, held a joint news conference to highlight the pressure on the health insurance industry.

Critics “Reading Too Much Into” Emmy Appearance, Spicer Says

Sean Spicer said his surprise Emmy Awards appearance was a chance to have some fun and suggested that people who were upset by it were taking things too seriously. Clearly, not everyone was laughing, however. For Emmys host Stephen Colbert, there's also a risk that a joke he engineered could wind up doing collateral damage. The former White House press secretary's cameo was Colbert's idea, and they arranged to maximize the surprise factor through Chris Licht, the Colbert producer who knew Spicer from his background in news. Colbert set the joke up by saying there was no way of knowing how many people would be watching the Emmys, then Spicer wheeled out from behind a podium to say "this will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys period, both in person and around the world." The clear reference was to Spicer's first appearance in the White House press room, arguing against photographic evidence about how large President Donald Trump's Inauguration Day audience was. Trump critics resented the apparent effort to "normalize" Spicer.