Videos put scrutiny on downed power lines as possible cause of deadly Maui wildfires
Awakened by howling winds that tore through his Maui neighborhood, Shane Treu went out at dawn and saw a wooden power pole suddenly snap with a flash, its sparking, popping line falling to the dry grass below and quickly igniting a row of flames.
He called 911 and then turned on Facebook video to livestream his attempt to fight the blaze in Lahaina, including wetting down his property with a garden hose.
“I heard ‘buzz, buzz,’” the 49-year-old resort worker recounted to The Associated Press. “It was almost like somebody lit a firework. It just ran straight up the hill to a bigger pile of grass and then, with that high wind, that fire was blazing.”
Treu’s video and others captured the early moments of what would become the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. Now the footage has emerged as key evidence pointing to fallen utility lines as the possible cause. Hawaiian Electric Co. faces criticism for not shutting off the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple.
A class-action lawsuit has already been filed seeking to hold the company responsible for the deaths of at least 101 people. The suit cites the utility’s own documents showing it was aware that preemptive power shutoffs such as those used in California were an effective strategy to prevent wildfires but never adopted them.
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Trump and 18 allies charged in Georgia election meddling as former president faces 4th criminal case
ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, with prosecutors using a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power.
The nearly 100-page indictment details dozens of acts by Trump or his allies to undo his defeat, including beseeching Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to find enough votes for him to win the battleground state; harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud; and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump.
In one particularly brazen episode, it also outlines a plot involving one of his lawyers to access voting machines in a rural Georgia county and steal data from a voting machine company.
"The indictment alleges that rather than abide by Georgia’s legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office brought the case, said at a late-night news conference.
Other defendants include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; and a Trump administration Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, who aided the then-president's efforts to undo his election loss in Georgia. Other lawyers who advanced legally dubious ideas to overturn the results, including John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, were also charged.
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Georgia election indictment highlights wider attempts to illegally access voting equipment
ATLANTA (AP) — A day after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, as the country was still reeling from the violent attempt to halt the transfer of presidential power, a local Republican Party official greeted a group of computer experts outside the election office in a rural county in south Georgia, where they were given access to voting equipment.
Their intent was to copy software and data from the election systems in an attempt to prove claims by President Donald Trump and his allies that voting machines had been rigged to flip the 2020 election to his challenger, Democrat Joe Biden, according to a wide-ranging indictment issued late Monday.
Several of those involved are among the 19 people, including the former president, charged with multiple counts in what Georgia prosecutors describe as a “conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”
The charges related to the breach of election equipment in Coffee County highlight that the pressure campaign by the former president and his allies didn’t stop with state officials and lawmakers, but extended all the way down to local government. Relying on Georgia's racketeering law, the type of prosecution more typically associated with mobsters, the indictment alleges the events in Coffee County were part of a wider effort by Trump associates to illegally access voting equipment in multiple states.
“The one thing that Coffee County shows, and these other counties as well, is that the effort behind Jan. 6 didn’t stop on Jan. 6,” said Lawrence Norden, an election security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s School of Law. “The ongoing effort to undermine and sabotage elections has continued.”
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Will Donald Trump show up at next week's presidential debate? GOP rivals are preparing for it
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — He says he won't sign the pledge required to participate, but former President Donald Trump's Republican rivals are actively preparing as if he will be onstage for the GOP's first 2024 presidential debate next week.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is hosting mock debate sessions with someone playing the part of the former president. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been participating in weekly debate prep sessions for several weeks with an eye toward drawing clear contrasts with Trump. And Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, is planning to show she can stand up to bullies.
In all, eight Republican candidates have met the Republican National Committee's fundraising and polling thresholds required to qualify for the debate next Wednesday, Aug. 23, hosted by Fox News in Milwaukee. Trump is among them, although he has said publicly and privately that he's leaning against participating given his big lead in national polls and concerns about the Fox moderators.
Still, the former reality television star, who is a master at shaping media coverage, has yet to rule it out completely.
He is consumed this week with yet another criminal indictment, this one in Georgia, where prosecutors on Monday used a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse Trump, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. Even before the latest legal drama, he gave himself a way out of the debate last week when he told Fox News he would not sign a pledge, required of all participants, to support the GOP's eventual nominee.
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Mar-a-Lago property manager pleads not guilty to charges in Trump's classified documents case
FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to scheming with Donald Trump to try to delete security footage sought by investigators probing the former president's hoarding of classified documents.
An attorney for De Oliveira entered the plea on his behalf during a brief hearing in the Fort Pierce, Florida, federal court, where Trump is charged with illegally holding onto top-secret records at his Palm Beach club and thwarting government efforts to retrieve them.
It's the third court appearance for De Oliveira, who twice before had his arraignment postponed because he hadn't yet finalized a Florida-based attorney, which is required under court rules.
De Oliveira spoke only to answer the magistrate judge's questions, such as whether he understood the charges against him. De Oliveira and his new attorney, Donnie Murrell of West Palm Beach, walked out of the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
De Oliveira’s arraignment comes a day after Trump was charged in a fourth criminal case. Monday night Trump and 18 allies were indicted in a case out of Fulton County, Georgia, over alleged efforts by him and his supporters to illegally meddle in the 2020 election in that state.
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Prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case deny defense push to keep gun charge agreement in place
WASHINGTON (AP) — A legal showdown over the derailed plea deal for Hunter Biden continued Tuesday as prosecutors asserted that an agreement on a gun charge is dead along with the rest of the deal as the case makes a major shift into a special counsel investigation.
While the agreement that was supposed to have wrapped up the long-running investigation of President Joe Biden's son largely unraveled during a contentious court hearing last month, prosecutors said the two sides had continued to negotiate until the defense rejected their final counterproposal the day before U.S. Attorney David Weiss asked to be named special counsel.
Lawyers for Hunter Biden have argued that prosecutors reneged on an agreement on tax charges but said a separate agreement sparing him prosecution on a gun charge remains valid. The agreement on the gun charge also contains an immunity clause against federal prosecutions for some other potential crimes.
Prosecutors denied reneging on any deal. While the agreement on the gun charge was signed by a prosecutor, probation agents didn’t sign it and so it never became valid, they argued.
The conflict is now in front of U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who is weighing the prosecution’s motion to pull the tax misdemeanor charges they filed and potentially file them in another court like California or Washington.
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American industrial icon US Steel is on the verge of being absorbed as industry consolidates further
With two bidders revealed in a matter of days and more in the wings, United States Steel Corp. — a symbol of American industrialization that for more than a century helped build everything from the United Nations building in New York City to the New Orleans Superdome — appears be on the cusp of being absorbed.
Here’s what's happened so far, and how the acquisition of U.S. Steel could reshape steelmaking globally.
After rejecting a $7.3 billion buyout proposal from rival Cleveland-Cliffs on Sunday, U.S. Steel said it was considering its next move. On Monday, industrial conglomerate Esmark offered $7.8 billion for the Pittsburgh steelmaker.
Shares of U.S. Steel soared more than 30% Monday with good odds that bids for the 122-year-old steel producer will head higher.
U.S. Steel says it has other offers to consider as well, and the company gave no timeline for if and when it might make any decision about selling itself.
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McCarthy floats stopgap funding to prevent a government shutdown at the end of next month
Washington (AP) — Congressional leaders are pitching a stopgap government funding package to avoid a federal shutdown after next month, acknowledging the House and Senate are nowhere near agreement on spending levels to keep federal operations running.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy raised the idea of a months-long funding package, known as a continuing resolution, to House Republicans on a members-only call Monday evening, according to those familiar with the private session and granted anonymity to discuss it.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the two leaders had spoken about such a temporary measure. It would extend federal funding operations into December to allow more time to work on the annual spending bills.
“I thought it was a good thing that he recognized that we need a CR,” Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters on a call.
"We hope that our House Republicans will realize that any funding resolution has to be bipartisan or they will risk shutting down the government," he said.
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Israel may uproot ancient Christian mosaic near Armageddon. Where it could go next sparks outcry
TEL MEGIDDO, Israel (AP) — An ancient Christian mosaic bearing an early reference to Jesus as God is at the center of a controversy that has riled archaeologists: Should the centuries-old decorated floor, which is near what's believed to be the site of the prophesied Armageddon, be uprooted and loaned to a U.S. museum that has been criticized for past acquisition practices?
Israeli officials are considering just that. The proposed loan to the Museum of the Bible in Washington also underscores the deepening ties between Israel and evangelical Christians in the U.S, whom Israel has come to count on for political support, tourism dollars and other benefits.
The Megiddo Mosaic is from what is believed to be the world's earliest Christian prayer hall that was located in a Roman-era village in northern Israel. It was discovered by Israeli archaeologists in 2005 during a salvage excavation conducted as part of the planned expansion of an Israeli prison.
The prison sits at a historic crossroads a mile south of Tel Megiddo on the cusp of the wide, flat Jezreel Valley. The compound is ringed by a white steel fence topped with barbed wire and is used for the detention of Palestinian security inmates.
Across a field strewn with cow-dung and potsherds, the palm-crowned site of a Bronze and Iron Age city and ancient battles is where some Christians believe a conclusive battle between good and evil will transpire at the end of days: Armageddon.
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Russia's central bank makes huge interest rate hike to try to prop up falling ruble
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russia’s central bank made a big interest rate hike Tuesday, an emergency move designed to fight inflation and strengthen the ruble after the country's currency reached its lowest value since early in the war with Ukraine.
The ruble has lost more than a third of its value since the beginning of the year as Moscow increases military spending and Western sanctions weigh on its income from energy shipments. The flagging currency does not mean the Russian economy is in freefall — though it is facing challenges, including rising prices for households and businesses, according to analysts who study Russia.
A lower exchange rate allows Moscow to transfer the dollars it earns from selling oil and natural gas into more rubles to pay pensions and run government agencies. But the drop in value went a bit too far, and officials are now tightening it up, analysts say.
While over time sanctions will erode long-term economic growth, the recently weaker ruble “does not imply an underlying economic crisis, it doesn’t suggest Russia is about to fall off a cliff,” said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Partners.
The central bank hiked its key rate 3.5 percentage points to 12% after announcing a meeting of its board of directors a day earlier as the ruble declined.
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