California's largest wildfire explodes in size as fires rage across US West
California's largest active fire exploded in size on Friday evening, growing rapidly amid bone-dry fuel and threatening thousands of homes as firefighters scrambled to meet the danger.
The Park Fire's intensity and dramatic spread led fire officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous Camp Fire, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and torching 11,000 homes.
More than 130 structures have been destroyed by this fire so far, and thousands more are threatened as evacuations were ordered in four counties: Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta. It stood at 480 square miles (1,243 square kilometers) on Friday night and was moving quickly north and east after igniting Wednesday when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene.
“There’s a tremendous amount of fuel out there and it’s going to continue with this rapid pace," Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said at a briefing. He said the fire was advancing up to 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) an hour on Friday afternoon.
Officials at Lassen Volcanic National Park evacuated staff from Mineral, a community of about 120 people where the park headquarters are located, as the fire moved north toward Highway 36 and east toward the park.
Israel orders the evacuation of an area designated as a humanitarian zone in Gaza
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.
The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.
On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.
The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.
Further north, airstrikes killed at least five overnight in Zawaida in central Gaza, according to AP journalists who saw the bodies at the hospital. The count, confirmed by Deir al Balah’s Al Aqsa hospital, included a father, mother and three children.
FBI says Trump was indeed struck by bullet during assassination attempt
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump’s near assassination, the FBI confirmed Friday that it was indeed a bullet that struck the former president’s ear, moving to clear up conflicting accounts about what caused the former president’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally.
“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the agency said in a statement.
The one-sentence statement from the FBI marked the most definitive law enforcement account of Trump’s injuries and followed ambiguous comments earlier in the week from Director Christopher Wray that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump had actually been hit by a bullet.
The comment drew fury from Trump and his allies and further stoked conspiracy theories that have flourished on both sides of the political aisle amid a dearth of information following the July 13 attack.
Up until now, federal law enforcement agents involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, had refused to provide information about what caused Trump’s injuries. Trump’s campaign has also declined to release medical records from the hospital where he was first treated or to make the doctors there available for questions.
Paris dazzles with a rainy Olympics opening ceremony on the Seine River
PARIS (AP) — A hot-air balloon brought an Olympic ring of fire into a rainy sky and singer Celine Dion belted from the Eiffel Tower as Paris kicked off its first Summer Olympics in a century Friday, with a four-hour-long, rule-breaking opening ceremony that unfurled along the Seine River.
On-and-off showers did not seem to hamper the enthusiasm of the athletes. Some held umbrellas as they rode boats down the river in a showcase of the city’s resilience as authorities investigated suspected acts of sabotage targeting France's high-speed rail network.
With the ambitious ceremony, the stakes for France were immense. Dozens of heads of state and government were in town, and the world was watching as Paris turned itself into a giant open-air theater. Along the Seine, iconic monuments became stages for dancers, singers and other artists.
That included the Louvre Museum, near where French judo champ Teddy Riner and three-time Olympic champion runner Marie-Jose Perec lit the Olympic cauldron, which was attached to a giant balloon that floated into the night — an homage to early French pioneers of manned flight.
“We survived the rain, but it didn’t spoil any of our fun," USA beach volleyball player Kelly Cheng said. "This was one of the most magical nights of our lives.”
Olympics opening ceremony saw no major reported issues, French official says
PARIS (AP) — France's interior minister praised security forces after no major issues were reported Friday during the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
Authorities had deployed a massive security operation in Paris to keep the event safe. The capital's streets were blocked off, with squadrons of police patrolling and imposing metal-fence security barriers erected like an iron curtain on both sides of the River Seine. Up to 45,000 police and gendarmes as well as 10,000 soldiers have been deployed for Olympic security.
Here's a look at what's happened with security so far:
“We did it,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on the social platform X, praising an “event without incident.”
“After four years of intense work to prepare for the world’s biggest sport event, we have never been prouder of our security forces,” he tweeted.
'Gen Z feels the Kamalove': Youth-led progressive groups hope Harris will energize young voters
CHICAGO (AP) — “ Brats for Harris.” “ We need a Kamalanomenon. ” “ Gen Z feels the Kamalove.”
In the days since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters jumped to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer" memes — reflecting a stark shift in tone for a generation that's voiced feeling left behind by the Democratic party.
Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, pleading with the president to work more closely with them to refocus on the issues most important to younger generations or risk losing their votes. With Biden out of the race, many of these young leaders are now hoping Harris can overcome his faltering support among Gen Z and harness a new explosion of energy among young voters.
Since Sunday, statements have poured out from youth-led organizations across the country, including in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as leaders thanked Biden for stepping aside and celebrated the opportunity to organize around a new candidate. On Friday, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed Harris.
“This changes everything,” said Zo Tobi, director of donor organizing for the national youth organizing group Movement Voter Project, when he heard the news that Biden was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris. “The world as it is suddenly shifted into the world as it could be.”
With trials pushed back, Trump sees first big dip in legal bills
WASHINGTON (AP) — As former President Donald Trump faces a supercharged Democratic fundraising effort, a persistent drag on his campaign’s coffers may be easing: legal expenses.
A new report shows that the Save America political action committee paid about $827,000 in June for Trump's legal bills — the first time a monthly total has dipped below $1 million in two years. The Trump-aligned PAC has shelled out an average of nearly $4 million a month on such costs since July 2022, most of it on defending the former president in criminal and civil cases, according to an Associated Press analysis of campaign finance records.
It is not surprising that Save America has recorded such a drop. Trump's weeks-long hush-money trial ended in May — with a conviction — and the former president has enjoyed a string of good fortune in two federal criminal cases that will not go to trial anytime soon, if at all. A fourth case, in Georgia, is also in limbo.
Funds once needed to finance those courtroom battles can instead be spent on the campaign, which has entered a critical phase. On Sunday, President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place at the head of the Democratic ticket, effectively restarting the race. Trump has said he should be reimbursed for the money his campaign spent against Biden.
Democrats have rallied around Harris, whose campaign has since received at least $126 million in donations as of Wednesday, a staggering sum that's nearly half as much as the Biden reelection effort had raised in the entire second quarter. An additional $150 million has been pledged to Future Forward, an outside group supporting the Democratic ticket.
Mexican kingpin's arrest likely to set off violent jockeying for power
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A new era is coming for Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel in the wake of the capture by U.S. authorities of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the last of the grand old Mexican drug traffickers.
Experts believe his arrest will usher in a new wave of violence in Mexico even as Zambada could potentially provide loads of information for U.S. prosecutors.
Zambada, who had eluded authorities for decades and had never set foot in prison, was known for being an astute operator, skilled at corrupting officials and having an ability to negotiate with everyone, including rivals.
Removing him from the criminal landscape could set off an internal war for control of the cartel that has a global reach — as has occurred with the arrest or killings of other kingpins — and open the door to the more violent inclinations of a younger generation of Sinaloa traffickers, experts say.
With that in mind, the Mexican government deployed 200 members of its special forces Friday to Culiacan, Sinaloa state’s capital.
Grappling with maritime disputes and Myanmar crisis, ASEAN top diplomat meetings joined by US, China
VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) — Top diplomats from Southeast Asia convened Saturday in the Laotian capital with their powerful dialogue partners in the last of the three-day regional talks that have grappled with tensions over territorial claims in the South China Sea, escalating fighting in Myanmar, and regional rivalry.
Meetings on Saturday in Vientiane are bringing together in the same room allies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — including the United States, China, Russia, Japan, India and Australia — to bolster their relationships and discuss key security issues and other regional affairs.
In a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday, Indonesia Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the bloc's good partnership with Washington should also contribute to global peace. She said they should be respecting international laws “in a consistent manner,” whether about Ukraine, the South China Sea or the crisis in Gaza.
Blinken said he hopes to work closely with the ASEAN nations on those matters, as well as violence in Myanmar and provocations by North Korea.
The Secretary of State is expected to meet on the sidelines with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, as both countries are looking to expand their influence in the region.
AP PHOTOS: Venezuelans rally ahead of election many see as biggest threat yet for President Maduro
Flags, motorcycles, electronic merengue and all sorts of T-shirts — including one styled as a photo collage of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour — have all been part of the monthslong campaigns leading into Sunday’s heated presidential election in Venezuela.
President Nicolás Maduro is seeking a third six-year term in office, and he and his ruling party are facing their toughest electoral challenge in decades.
After years of election boycotts and internal divisions, the main opposition parties have come together to support a single candidate, former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia. He is representing the opposition coalition after the winner of the bloc’s primary, María Corina Machado, was sidelined by the government.
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