Thousands ordered to flee California wildfire near Yosemite

WAWONA, Calif.
(AP) - A fast-moving brush fire near Yosemite National Park exploded in size Saturday into one of California's largest wildfires of the year, prompting evacuation orders for thousands of people and shutting off power to more than 2,000 homes and businesses.

The Oak Fire started Friday afternoon southwest of the park near the town of Midpines in Mariposa County and by Saturday had grown to nearly 15 square miles (38 square kilometers), according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

It erupted as firefighters made progress against an earlier blaze that burned to the edge of a grove of giant sequoias in the southernmost part of Yosemite park.

Evacuation orders were put in effect Saturday for over 6,000 people living across a several-mile span in the sparsely populated, rural area, комиксы said Daniel Patterson, a spokesman for the Sierra National Forest.

More than 400 firefighters were battling the blaze, along with helicopters, other aircraft and bulldozers, facing tough conditions that included hot weather, low humidity and bone-dry vegetation caused by the worst drought in decades, Patterson said.

"Explosive fire behavior is challenging firefighters," Cal Fire said in a statement Saturday that described the Oak Fire's activity as "extreme with frequent runs, spot fires and group torching."

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Jan. 6 hearings traced an arc of 'carnage' wrought by Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) - To understand how Donald Trump_s desperation and lies became a potent danger to democracy, consider the ginger mints.

Mints featured in one of the absurdist but toxic episodes fleshed out in the Jan. 6 hearings, which now pause even as the Justice Department presses ahead on a parallel criminal investigation that it calls the most important in its history.

Here's how one conspiracy theory, in a dark sea of them, was born:

A mother-daughter team at a Georgia elections center shared the treat during a long election night.

Someone videotaped them and chose to believe the mint mother gave to daughter was a USB port. Trump_s lawyer spread the accusation that the video caught the women using the device to try to corrupt the election against the president.

Frantic to stay in power, grasping at anything, Trump ran with the lie.
He attacked the mother by name, branded her a "professional vote scammer," and soon vigilantes showed up at a family home intending to execute a "citizens_ arrest," the committee was told. For the love of mints.

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UN health agency chief declares monkeypox a global emergency

LONDON (AP) - The expanding monkeypox outbreak in more than 70 countries is an "extraordinary" situation that qualifies as a global emergency, the World Health Organization chief said Saturday, a declaration that could spur further investment in treating the once-rare disease and worsen the scramble for scarce vaccines.

A global emergency is WHO_s highest level of alert but the designation does not necessarily mean a disease is particularly transmissible or lethal.

Similar declarations were made for the Zika virus in 2016 in Latin America and the ongoing effort to eradicate polio, in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the decision on calling monkeypox a global emergency despite a lack of consensus among experts on the U.N.
health agency's emergency committee, saying he acted as "a tiebreaker." It was the first time a U.N. health agency chief has unilaterally made such a decision without an expert recommendation.

"We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little," Tedros said.

"I know this has not been an easy or straightforward process and that there are divergent views."

WHO_s emergencies chief, Dr. Michael Ryan, said the director-general declared monkeypox a global emergency to ensure that the world takes the current outbreaks seriously.

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Russia hits Ukraine's Black Sea port despite grain deal

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - Russian missiles hit Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa just hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed deals to allow grain exports to resume from there.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry denounced Saturday's airstrikes as a "spit in the face" to Turkey and the United Nations, which brokered the agreements.

Two Russian Kalibr cruise missiles hit the port's infrastructure and Ukrainian air defenses brought down two others, the Ukrainian military_s Southern Command said.

Odesa regional governor Maksym Marchenko said an unspecified number of people were injured in the attack.

Command spokeswoman Nataliya Humenyuk said no grain storage facilities were hit in Odesa. Turkey's defense minister, however, said he had spoken with Ukrainian authorities and one missile struck a grain silo and another landed nearby but neither affected loading at Odesa's docks.

"It took less than 24 hours for Russia to launch a missile attack on Odesa_s port, breaking its promises and undermining its commitments before the U.N. and Turkey under the Istanbul agreement," Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said.

"In case of non-fulfillment, Russia will bear full responsibility for a global food crisis."

"The invaders can no longer deceive anyone," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

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Supreme Court leak probe: So many questions, so few answers

WASHINGTON (AP) - Less than 24 hours after the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion that overturned Roe v.

Wade, Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation into the "egregious breach. "

Since then? Silence.

The Supreme Court won't say whether it's still investigating.

The court also won't say whether the leaker has been identified or whether anyone has been disciplined.

Or whether an outside law firm or the FBI has been called in.

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Investigators: Attacker 'did not know who' Zeldin was

A man accused of attacking New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin during a recent campaign rally told investigators he_d been drinking that day and didn_t know who the congressman was, authorities said as the man was arrested on a federal assault charge Saturday.

David Jakubonis, 43, made an initial court appearance Saturday before a federal magistrate judge in Rochester, New York, on a single count of assaulting a member of Congress with a dangerous weapon. The charge carries a potential maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

He was ordered held until a bail hearing in federal court Wednesday.

Prosecutors said he should remain detained as a flight risk and is dangerous, according to a court filing. Assistant federal public defender Steven Slawinski, representing Jakubonis, said in an email to The Associated Press that he planned to ask the judge to release Jakubonis from custody.

Jakubonis was arraigned Friday on a separate state charge of attempted assault in the second degree and was released by a local judge.

That prompted criticism from Zeldin and other Republicans who held it up as an example of the need to reform New York_s bail laws, something Zeldin has called on Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to toughen.

A 2019 bail reform law in New York eliminated pretrial incarceration for people accused of most nonviolent offenses.
The law gives judges the option to set bail in nearly all cases involving violent felonies, but it has exceptions for certain attempted felonies like attempted assault.

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Parents, 6-year-old girl, fatally shot in tent at Iowa park

A 9-year-old boy who was camping at an Iowa state park with his parents and 6-year-old sister survived a shooting that killed the rest of his family.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety identified the victims as Tyler Schmidt, 42; his 42-year-old wife, Sarah Schmidt; and their 6-year-old daughter, Lula Schmidt, all of Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Their bodies were found in their tent early Friday at the Maquoketa Caves State Park Campground, about 180 miles (290 kilometers) east of Des Moines.

Authorities said the suspected gunman, 23-year-old Anthony Sherwin, was found dead Friday in a wooded area of the park with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Department of Public Safety_s division of criminal investigation, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the motive for the attack was still unknown.

"We don_t know what led up to this, what precipitated it," he said, adding that so far, "the investigation has not revealed any early interaction between the Schmidt family and him."

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Doctor: Biden likely has highly contagious COVID-19 strain

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Joe Biden likely contracted a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly through the United States, and now has body aches and a sore throat since his positive test, according to an update from his doctor on Saturday.

The variant, known as BA.5, is an offshoot of the omicron strain that emerged late last year, and it's believed to be responsible for the vast majority of coronavirus cases in the country.

Dr.

Kevin O_Connor, the president_s physician, wrote in his latest update on Biden's condition that Biden's earlier symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough, have become "less troublesome." O'Connor's earlier notes did not mention the sore throat or body aches.

Biden's vital signs, such as blood pressure and respiratory rate, "remain entirely normal," and his oxygen saturation levels are "excellent" with "no shortness of breath at all," the doctor wrote.

O'Connor said the results of the preliminary sequencing that indicated the BA.5 variant do not affect Biden's treatment plan "in any way."

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Has Florida Man finally met his match?

Meet Florida Sheriff

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - When a naked man in southwestern Florida recently raised a ruckus outside his house and threatened a deputy with a kitchen knife, the SWAT team swooped in and apprehended him.

Soon afterward, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno stood on the man's driveway in combat gear for a news conference while the suspect went to the jailhouse that the sheriff likes to call the "Marceno Motel."

"He_s an oxygen-stealer and a scumbag, and I_m glad he_s outta here," Marceno told reporters.

"I_m proud to say that in this county, if you present deadly physical force ... we meet you with deadly force every time, and we win. It_s pretty clean, pretty quick."

The Sunshine State has become internationally notorious for the oddball miscreants who populate its police blotters and local news reports - known collectively as Florida Man. There are murders and mayhem, like anyplace else, and then there are the only-in-Florida incidents like the man charged with assault with a deadly weapon for throwing an alligator through a Wendy_s drive-thru window in Palm Beach County in 2015.

But an equally eccentric cast of hard-boiled sheriffs make a career of going after these guys.

Florida Man, meet Florida Sheriff.

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Warner Bros. brings `Black Adam,_ `Shazam! 2_ to Comic-Con

Dwayne Johnson went a few steps beyond merely teasing his long-awaited "Black Adam" movie at Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday.

Ever the showman, Johnson brought a new traile r for the DC Comics superhero film and some flashy technology, lighting up the biggest room at the annual fan convention all while in costume.

But he had another big reveal too: Johnson told the 6,000-some people in the audience that they could see "Black Adam" in IMAX for free with the help of the ticketing service Fandango.

The character Black Adam has the powers of the ancient gods and has been entombed for some 5,000 years before being released into the modern world.
In the trailer he says his powers are "a curse, not a gift."

Set for an Oct. 21 theatrical release, "Black Adam" reunites Johnson with his "Jungle Cruise" director Jaume Collet-Serra. It also stars Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher and Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, all of whom joined Johnson and Collet-Serra for the panel.

"Black Adam" was just one part of Warner Bros.

return to Comic-Con, where audiences also got a glimpse at a new trailer for " Shazam! Fury of the Gods." Stars Zachary Levi and Lucy Liu were on hand to promote the sequel, which is due to arrive in theaters on Dec. 21 and continues the story of a teenager-turned-superhero who is feeling a bit like a fraud.

The film sees the return of Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer and Adam Brody and adds Helen Mirren and Rachel Zegler of "West Side Story" to the mix.