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What caused the Maui wildfires?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

(KHON/NEXSTAR) – A series of wildfires raging across Maui have devastated the island and its communities, wiping out homes and businesses and destroying the historic town of Lahaina in just a few days.The death toll, which had climbed to 55 as of Friday morning, is also expected to grow as rescue workers continue recovery efforts.“The closest thing I can compare it to is perhaps a war zone or maybe a bomb went off,” Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said Friday during an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”“It was cars in the street, doors open, you know, melted to the ground. Most structures no longer exist,” Bissen said. Newest photos show devastation from Maui fire The blazes first broke out Tuesday, though the exact causes are currently unknown. What officials do know, however, is that conditions in Maui were perfect for wildfires in the months leading up to this week’s events.Maui has experienced an especially dry summer, both in terms of humidity and vegetation, e...

Detention worker suspected of having sexual relations with detainee

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- A case manager at the Otay Mesa Detention Facility in South Bay is suspected of having sexual relations with a detainee.According to U.S. Attorney Andrew Haden's office Thursday, 36-year-old Shantal Hernandez -- an employee of the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO) -- is being charged in a now unsealed complaint. Suspected smuggling boat intercepted near Solana Beach: CBP The complaint revealed that agents with the Office of Professional Responsibility (ICE OPR) received information that Hernandez had allegedly been spending an "unusual" amount of time with a detainee -- identified in court documents by the initials I.K.N. The attorney's office says ICE OPR obtained phone records from the detention facility. Based on the records, the office determined that I.K.N. and Hernandez engaged in a significant number of sexually explicit phone calls and electronic communications -- some of which allegedly discussed an ongoing relationship and sex acts.“Hernan...

UN announces release of 5 staff members kidnapped by al-Qaida in Yemen 18 months ago

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Five United Nations staff members who were kidnapped in Yemen 18 months ago by an al-Qaida affiliate have walked free, U.N. officials said Friday.David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, said the five men – four Yemenis and one who is from Bangladesh, were “in good health, good spirits … but they went through a very difficult period of isolation.”The five were freed after lengthy negotiations that included officials from Oman, the U.N. said. Gressly, who spoke to U.N. reporters after flying with the four citizens to southern Yemen’s port city of Aden, said: : “I can confirm that the hostage-takers were Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”Also known as AQAP, the group has been active in southern Yemen for years and is considered one of the global al-Qaeda network’s most dangerous branches. It has attempted to carry out attacks on the U.S. mainland. Gressly said the United Nations never pays ransom, which is one reason the U.N. staffe...

Coroner’s office releases names of third person killed in I-81 bus crash in Pennsylvania

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Authorities have released the name of the third person killed in a bus crash on a Pennsylvania interstate near the commonwealth’s capital city.The Dauphin County coroner’s office said Friday that Kadiatou Barry, 21, of Cincinnati, died in the crash that occurred shortly before midnight Sunday north of Harrisburg on Interstate 81, but did not disclose her cause of death. The office had previously announced that 39-year-old Alioune Diop of the Bronx, New York, and 26-year-old Serigne Ndiaye, whose residence is unknown, died of multiple traumatic injuries.State police have said the bus, carrying up to 50 people and heading from New York to Ohio, was traveling south on I-81 during heavy rain. It was in the right lane on a right-hand curve when it left the road, struck an embankment, turned onto its right side and hit a sport utility vehicle that had stopped in traffic in the right lane, police said.Those killed on the bus operated by the Super Lucky Tour Company o...

Avian botulism detected at California’s resurgent Tulare Lake, raising concern for migrating birds

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Wildlife authorities have detected avian botulism at California’s resurgent Tulare Lake, raising concerns about potential die-offs during fall bird migrations.Testing confirmed the disease in a mallard duck and a wading bird called a white-faced ibis collected at the lake in the southern Central Valley, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a press release Thursday.Crews are using airboats to collect dead and ill birds.“Removing carcasses will be the first step of defense in preventing further spread,” department scientist Evan King said in a statement.Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, fed by spring snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada. But the lake eventually vanished as settlers dammed and diverted water for agriculture, turning the lakebed into farmland.The lake reappeared this year after California was hit by an extraordinary series of atmospheric rivers and by May water covered more than 1...

Man in Bosnia kills ex-wife live on Instagram and kills 2 more people before taking his own life

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — A man in Bosnia shot and killed his ex-wife while streaming the slaying live on Instagram and then killed two other people while on the run before taking his own life Friday, according to police and media reports.The attack took place in the northeastern Bosnian town of Gradacac, where the assailant left three people wounded before he “committed suicide after being located and before being apprehended,” police in the city of Tuzla said in a statement. Bosnia is still reeling from a bloody war in the 1990s and violence against women is widespread, but the ex-wife’s livestreamed slaying shocked people in the Balkan country.Prosecutors said that after killing her, the man went onto the streets of Gradacac with a pistol and shot and killed a man and his son. He also wounded a police officer, another man and a woman at various locations in the town.“I have no words to describe what happened today in Gradacac,” said Nermin Niksic, the prime ...

Lawyer says suspect, charged with hate crime, may argue self-defense in dancer’s death

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A 17-year-old pleaded not guilty Friday to hate-motivated murder in a stabbing that followed a clash over men dancing, and his lawyer said the youth “regrets what happened” and may argue he was defending himself.Charged as an adult, Dmitriy Popov was being held without bail after his arraignment in the killing of O’Shae Sibley, a professional dancer. Prosecutors say the killing was fueled by bigotry that was trained on Sibley and his friends as they cut loose to a Beyoncé song while pumping gas at a Brooklyn filling station. Sibley, 28, was stabbed after he and a couple of his friends confronted the defendant “to speak out and protect himself and his friends from anti-gay and anti-Black slurs,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Thursday. “Defending yourself from the anti-gay or anti-Black comments, arguing back, it’s not a cause for someone to take a weapon and do what was done in this case,” the prosecutor said.But Popov’s lawyer, Mark Pollar...

Six Nations leaders say Robbie Robertson gave cultural centre invaluable support

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

A gesture by late musician Robbie Robertson has drawn attention to a Six Nations community’s cultural restoration project and local leaders anticipate it will have a lasting positive impact.Heather George, executive director of the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford, Ont., says a public request from Robertson’s family to donate to the centre’s fundraising efforts for a new building has already drawn much attention as news spread of the musician’s death on Wednesday at 80 years old.“One of my hopes is that more people learn about Woodland, the work that we do and the history of our site,” said George in a phone interview.The Woodland Cultural Centre is located on Six Nations land and is part of the former grounds of the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School. The school closed in 1970 and is now preserved as a historic space to educate people on the impacts of the residential school system.The cultural centre provides resources to promote In...

EXPLAINER: What are special counsels and what do they do?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

The appointment of a special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s probe of Hunter Biden is bringing renewed attention on the role such prosecutors have played in modern American history.On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who has been probing the financial and business dealings of the president’s son, to oversee the department’s investigation. He said Weiss asked to be appointed to the position and told him that “in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work,” now as special counsel.In January, Garland appointed Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney in Maryland, to oversee the department’s investigation into how several batches of documents marked as classified ended up at Joe Biden’s Delaware home and at the offices of the president’s Washington think tank.And last year, Garland appointed former Justice Department public corruption prosecutor Jack Smith to lead in...

VP Kamala Harris back in Chicago Friday

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:31:25 GMT

CHICAGO — The issue of gun violence is bringing Vice President Kamala Harris back to Chicago.Harris will address a gun safety conference at McCormick Place Friday afternoon.Officials said she'll discuss the administration's ongoing commitment to reducing gun violence. Illinois Supreme Court upholds state’s ban on semiautomatic weapons This is Harris' third visit to Chicago this summer.Read more: Latest Chicago news headlines