(Miami) — The National Hurricane Center says Irma’s projected path is continuing to shift to the west, just a few crucial miles, that should keep its eye just off Florida’s west coast on a track to hit St. Petersburg, not Miami or even Tampa.

The hurricane’s leading edge was already lashing the Florida Keys with hurricane force winds. If the center of the storm keeps moving over warm Gulf of Mexico water, it may regain more strength before making landfall again.

St. Petersburg, like Tampa, has not taken a head-on blow from a major hurricane in nearly a century. Clearwater would be next, and then the storm would finally go inland northwest of Ocala.

At midnight, the storm had top sustained winds of 120 mph  and is moving northward at about 6 mph.

(Charlottesville, Va.) — A judge in Virginia says a lawsuit over Charlottesville’s plans to remove a Confederate statue should go forward.

Judge Richard Moore ruled against the city’s request to drop the lawsuit.

A group of plaintiffs sued after Charlottesville’s City Council voted earlier this year to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Among other things, they say doing so would violate a state law that protects memorials for war veterans.

Controversy over the statue sparked an August rally of white nationalists that descended into violent chaos. Charlottesville has since shrouded the monument with a black shroud as a symbol of mourning for the woman who was killed.

The city council has also since voted to remove another statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.