Wildfire on Maui kills at least 6, damages over 270 structures as it sweeps through historic town
KAHULUI, Hawaii (AP) — A wildfire tore through the heart of the Hawaiian island of Maui in darkness Wednesday, reducing much of a historic town to ash and forcing people to jump into the ocean to flee the flames. At least six people died, dozens were wounded and 271 structures were damaged or destroyed.
Flyovers Wednesday of the town of Lahaina by US Civil Air Patrol and the Maui Fire Department showed the extend of the devestation, said Mahina Martin, a spokesperson for Maui County.
The fires continued to burn Wednesday afternoon, fueled by strong winds from Hurricane Dora as it passed well south of the Hawaiian islands. Officials feared the death toll could rise.
As winds diminished somewhat, some aircraft resumed flights, enabling pilots to view the full scope of the devastation. Aerial video from coastal Lahaina showed dozens of homes and businesses flattened, including on Front Street, where tourists gathered to shop and dine. Smoking heaps of rubble lay piled high next to the waterfront, boats in the harbor were scorched, and gray smoke hovered over the leafless skeletons of charred trees.
“It’s horrifying. I’ve flown here 52 years and I’ve never seen anything come close to that," said Richard Olsten, a helicopter pilot for a tour company. "We had tears in our eyes, the other pilots on board and the mechanics, and me.
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Anti-corruption presidential candidate assassinated at campaign event in Ecuador's capital
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — An Ecuadorian presidential candidate known for speaking up against corruption was shot and killed Wednesday at a political rally in the capital amid a wave of startling violence in the South American country.
President Guillermo Lasso confirmed the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio and suggested organized crime was behind his slaying, less than two weeks before the Aug. 20 presidential election.
“I assure you that this crime will not go unpunished,” Lasso said in a statement. “Organized crime has gone too far, but they will feel the full weight of the law.”
Prior to the shooting, Villavicencio said he had received multiple death threats, including from leaders of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, one of a slew of international organized crime groups that now operate in Ecuador.
Villavicencio was one of eight candidates, though not the frontrunner. The politician, 59, was the candidate for the Build Ecuador Movement.
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Special counsel got a search warrant for Twitter to turn over info on Trump's account, documents say
Special counsel Jack Smith's team obtained a search warrant in January for records related to former President Donald Trump's Twitter account, and a judge levied a $350,000 fine on the company for missing the deadline to comply, according to court documents released Wednesday.
The new details were included in a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington over a legal battle surrounding the warrant that has played out under seal for months. The court rejected Twitter's claim that it should not have been held in contempt or sanctioned.
Smith's team repeatedly mentioned Trump's tweets in an indictment unsealed last week that charges the former president with conspiring to subvert the will of voters and cling to power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump, a Republican, has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. He posted on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday that the Justice Department “secretly attacked” his Twitter account, and he characterized the investigation as an attempt to “infringe” on his bid to reclaim the White House in 2024.
It’s unclear what information Smith may have sought from Trump's account. Possibilities include data about when and where the posts were written, their engagement and the identities of other accounts that reposted Trump’s content.
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Biden issues an executive order restricting US investments in Chinese technology
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday to block and regulate high-tech U.S.-based investments going toward China — a move the administration said was targeted but it also reflected an intensifying competition between the world's two biggest powers.
The order covers advanced computer chips, micro electronics, quantum information technologies and artificial intelligence. Senior administration officials said that the effort stemmed from national security goals rather than economic interests, and that the categories it covered were intentionally narrow in scope. The order seeks to blunt China's ability to use U.S. investments in its technology companies to upgrade its military while also preserving broader levels of trade that are vital for both nations' economies.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce responded in a statement early Thursday that it has “serious concern” about the order and “reserves the right to take measures.”
We hope the U.S. side respects the laws of the market economy and the principle of fair competition, does not artificially obstruct global economic and trade exchanges and cooperation and does not put up obstacles for the recovery and growth of the world economy.”
The United States and China appear to be increasingly locked in a geopolitical competition with a conflicting set of values. Biden administration officials have insisted that they have no interest in “decoupling” from China, yet the U.S. also has limited the export of advanced computer chips and kept the expanded tariffs set up by President Donald Trump. And in its response, China accused the U.S. of “using the cover of ‘risk reduction’ to carry out ‘decoupling and chain-breaking.’” China has engaged in crackdowns on foreign companies.
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Utah man suspected of threatening President Joe Biden shot and killed as FBI served warrant
PROVO, Utah (AP) — An armed Utah man accused of making violent threats against President Joe Biden was shot and killed by FBI agents hours before the president landed in the state Wednesday, authorities said.
Special agents were trying to serve a warrant on the home of Craig Deleeuw Robertson in Provo, south of Salt Lake City, when the shooting happened at 6:15 a.m., the FBI said in a statement.
Robertson was armed at the time of the shooting, according to two law enforcement sources who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of an ongoing investigation.
Robertson posted online Monday that he had heard Biden was coming to Utah and he was planning to dig out a camouflage suit and begin “cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle," a post that came after months of graphic online threats against several public figures, according to court documents. Robertson referred to himself as a “MAGA Trumper,” a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, and also posted threats against top law enforcement officials overseeing court cases against Trump.
Neighbors described Robertson as a frail, elderly man — his online profile put his age as 74 — who walked with the aid of a hand-carved stick. Though he regularly carried guns, they said he didn't seem a threat.
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Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist and songwriter of The Band, dies at 80
Robbie Robertson, The Band’s lead guitarist and songwriter who in such classics as “The Weight” and “Up on Cripple Creek” mined American music and folklore and helped reshape contemporary rock, died Wednesday at 80.
Robertson died surrounded by family in Los Angeles “after a long illness,” publicist Ray Costa said in a statement.
From their years as Bob Dylan's masterful backing group to their own stardom as embodiments of old-fashioned community and virtuosity, The Band profoundly influenced popular music in the 1960s and '70s, first by literally amplifying Dylan’s polarizing transition from folk artist to rock star and then by absorbing the works of Dylan and Dylan's influences as they fashioned a new sound immersed in the American past.
“Long before we ever met, his music played a central role in my life — me and millions and millions of other people all over this world,” Martin Scorsese, Robertson's close friend and frequent collaborator, said in a statement. “The Band’s music, and Robbie’s own later solo music, seemed to come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys.”
The Canadian-born Robertson was a high school dropout and one-man melting pot — part-Jewish, part-Mohawk and Cayuga — who fell in love with the seemingly limitless sounds and byways of his adopted country and wrote out of a sense of amazement and discovery at a time when the Vietnam War had alienated millions of young Americans. His life had a “Candide”-like quality as he found himself among many of the giants of the rock era — getting guitar tips from Buddy Holly, taking in early performances by Aretha Franklin and by the Velvet Underground, smoking pot with the Beatles, watching the songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller develop material, chatting with Jimi Hendrix when he was a struggling musician calling himself Jimmy James.
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Ohio vote shows enduring power of abortion rights at ballot box, giving Democrats a path in 2024
CHICAGO (AP) — Abortion wasn't technically on the ballot in Ohio's special election. But the overwhelming defeat of a measure that would have made it tougher to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution this fall was the latest indicator that the issue remains a powerful force at the ballot box.
The election saw record turnout for what's typically a sleepy August election date and sets up another battle in November, when Ohio will be the only state this year to have reproductive rights on the ballot. It also gives hope to Democrats and other abortion rights supporters who say the matter could sway voters their way again in 2024. That's when it could affect races for president, Congress and statewide offices, and when places such as the battleground of Arizona may put abortion questions on their ballots as well.
Democrats described the victory in Ohio, a one-time battleground state that has shifted markedly to the right, as a “major warning sign” for the GOP.
“Republicans’ deeply unpopular war on women’s rights will cost them district after district, and we will remind voters of their toxic anti-abortion agenda every day until November,” said Aidan Johnson, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The measure voters rejected Tuesday, known as Issue 1, would have required ballot questions to pass with 60% of the vote rather than a simple majority. With the count nearly completed, votes against the measure, or No votes, received 57% compared with 43% in favor, a lead of almost 430,000 votes.
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Virginia prison officials won't divulge complaints about facility where inmate died
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The Virginia Department of Corrections, under scrutiny over the death of an inmate that raised broader questions about conditions at a southwest Virginia prison, is refusing to release public records documenting inmate complaints about the facility.
Allegations that multiple inmates were treated for hypothermia arose as part of a lawsuit over Charles Givens' death last year at the Marion Correctional Treatment Center. The lawsuit alleges Givens was tortured and beaten by guards off-camera.
The Department of Corrections said Wednesday that it isn’t required to turn over dozens of pages of documents because they involve incarcerated people and relate to their imprisonment. The agency refused to hand over the documents even with the names of prisoners’ and corrections officers redacted.
The Associated Press had asked the department for two years’ worth of any inmate complaints related to topics such as uncomfortably cold temperatures at the prison, nonfunctioning or poorly functioning heating systems, and windows being left open during cold months. Those and other claims were made in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Givens’ sister, Kym Hobbs.
Colleen Maxwell, who handles public records requests for the department, said in an email Wednesday that she had identified 46 pages of responsive records. But the agency invoked an exemption in the state’s open records law that deals with “records of persons imprisoned in penal institutions” to withhold the documents.
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Kidnappers in Haiti release US nurse and her young daughter nearly 2 weeks after their abduction
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Kidnappers in Haiti released a U.S. nurse and her daughter Wednesday, nearly two weeks after they were snatched at gunpoint from the campus of a Christian-run school near Port-au-Prince, underscoring the severe security risks for visitors to a capital city largely controlled by gangs.
The July 27 abduction of Alix Dorsainvil and her child happened the very day the U.S. State Department warned U.S. citizens to leave “as soon as possible” and ordered the departure of nonemergency U.S. government personnel from Haiti because of security concerns. The country remains under a U.S. “do not travel” advisory.
In the days following the kidnapping, El Roi Haiti, the Christian group founded by Dorsainvil’s husband, asked people to pray and said it was working on their safe return.
Hope waned among some. Gang warfare has increasingly plagued Haiti since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Gang members regularly kill, rape and hold residents for ransom. Some are held for months. A local nonprofit has documented 539 kidnappings since January, a significant rise over previous years for the country of more than 11 million people.
On Wednesday, El Roi Haiti confirmed the New Hampshire mother and daughter's safe release “with a heart of gratitude and immense joy.” The U.S. State Department issued a statement thanking its Haitian and U.S. interagency partners for facilitating the release. Neither gave any further details, including whether a ransom was paid.
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Hip-hop turns 50, reinventing itself and swaths of the world along the way
NEW YORK (AP) — It was born in the break, all those decades ago — that moment when a song's vocals dropped, instruments quieted down and the beat took the stage. It was then that hip-hop came into the world, taking the moment and reinventing it. Something new, coming out of something familiar.
At the hands of the DJs playing the albums, that break moment became something more: a composition in itself, repeated in an endless loop, back and forth between the turntables. The MCs got in on it, speaking their own clever rhymes and wordplay over it. So did the dancers, the b-boys and b-girls who hit the floor to break-dance. It took on its own visual style, with graffiti artists bringing it to the streets and subways of New York City.
It didn’t stay there, of course. A musical form, a culture, with reinvention as its very DNA would never, could never. Hip-hop spread, from the parties to the parks, through New York City’s boroughs and then the region, around the country and the world.
And at each step: change, adaptation, as new, different voices came in and made it their own, in sound, in lyric, in purpose, in style. Its foundations steeped in the Black communities where it first made itself known and also spreading out and expanding, like ripples in water, until there’s no corner of the world that hasn’t been touched by it.
Not only being reinvented, but reinventing. Art, culture, fashion, community, social justice, politics, sports, business: Hip-hop has impacted them all, transforming even as it has been transformed.
The Associated Press
