‘Extreme’ Delta Fire grows to 5,000 acres, forces I-5 closure

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A fast-moving wildfire in northern California forced the closure of the Pacific Coast’s primary interstate in both directions and suspended Amtrak service into Oregon on Wednesday night.

The human-caused Delta Fire is burning on both sides of Interstate 5 north of Lakehead in California’s Shasta County, which, earlier this summer, was ravaged by the deadly Carr Fire near Redding. The fire, which had consumed 5,000 acres as of 9:58 p.m. PST, had gathered strength from “mixed conifer and decadent brush with no recent fire history and heavy dead and down surface fuels,” according to Inciweb.

Carr Fire: Aerial view of California fire destruction shows extent of devastation in Redding area

Related: Fireproof homes could be the answer to massive wildfires across the West

The only continuous highway to touch the borders of Mexico and Canada, I-5 was shut down 10 miles north of Redding to a point south of Mount Shasta. There was no timetable, as of Wednesday night for the interstate’s reopening.

The fire, reported at 12:51 p.m., was zero percent contained on Wednesday night, with fire crews listing its behavior as “extreme.”

While the Delta Fire was not an immediate threat to any of the area’s larger cities and towns, the wildfire had destroyed abandoned trucks left “littered” on I-5 and forced evacuations for residents adjacent to the interstate to the border of neighboring Siskiyou County, the Redding Record-Searchlight, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported.

The city of Dunsmuir was placed under an evacuation warning late Wednesday night, with the fire burning about 15 miles away, according to the Record-Searchlight.

In a Facebook Live video from near the fire, CHP Patrol Sgt. Tim Hinkson said, “It’s just going to be a mess out there on I-5.”

On the freeway’s closure, Hinkson said, “It’s just too dangerous to let cars go through there.”

Amtrak’s Coast Starlight service, which runs from Sacramento to Klamath Falls, would resume when “conditions safely permit,” a company spokesperson told the Record-Searchlight via email.

The Delta Fire sparked just six days after full containment of the Carr Fire, which killed eight people, destroyed more than 1,600 structures and burned nearly 230,000 acres over five weeks. The sixth-most destructive wildfire in Golden State history cost nearly $160 million in suppression efforts.

At one point, the Carr Fire jumped the Sacramento River and encroached on Redding, the region’s largest city, forcing mandatory widespread evacuations and knocking out power.

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Moon, Kim agree to third summit to discuss denuclearisation

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Leaders of North and South Korea have agreed to meet on September 18 to discuss “practical measures” towards denuclearisation.

Kim Jong un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, as the North Korean leader reaffirmed his commitment towards the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

The summit – a third between the two leaders this year – will take place from September 18 to 20 and the dates were decided on Wednesday during a visit by South’s national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, to Pyongyang, where he met Kim and handed over a personal letter from Moon.

The North Korean leader said it was his country’s “fixed stand and his will to completely remove the danger of armed conflict and horror of war from the Korean peninsula and turn it into a cradle of peace without nuclear weapons and free from nuclear threat”, North’s state news agency KCNA reported.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from the South Korean capital Seoul, said meetings will take place next week to “lay the groundwork for this upcoming summit”.

“A liason office between the North and South will also be established,” he said.

“This was meant to be set up in August but delayed because of the troubled negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.”

The visit by the South Korean delegation to Pyongyang came amid a deadlock on the North’s nuclear weapons programme, with US efforts to dismantle the arsenal stalled for weeks.

In a landmark summit in Singapore in June, US President Donald Trump and Kim vowed to work towards the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”, but their agreement was short on details on what that meant and how it would be achieved.

Denuclearisation timeline

Frustrated with the lack of progress, Trump last month cancelled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang after the North reportedly sent a belligerent letter to the US president.

But despite the difficulties, Kim told the South Korean officials that his faith in Trump remains “unchanged” and he wanted to denuclearise and end long-standing hostile relations between North Korea and the United States during Trump’s first term ending early 2021, Chung said.

Kim’s remarks to South Korean officials mark the first time that the North Korean leader has offered a potential timeline for dismantling his country’s nuclear weapons programme.

“Chairman Kim asked us to convey the message to the US that the US [should] help create situations where he would feel his decision to denuclearise was a right move”, the South Korean official added. 

North and South Korea remain technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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Designated Survivor has been resuscitated by Netflix

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Designated Survivor

type
TV Show
Genre
Political, Thriller
run date
09/21/16
performer
Kiefer Sutherland, Maggie Q, Italia Ricci, Kal Penn
broadcaster
ABC
seasons
2

Don’t underestimate the draw (and power) of Kiefer Sutherland: Netflix announced Wednesday that it has picked up Designated Survivor — which ABC canceled in May — for a third season.

The streaming service has ordered 10 episodes of the political thriller, which stars Sutherland as the president of the United States. Neal Baer will take over as the series’ latest showrunner.

Here’s the synopsis Netflix released for the new season: “President Kirkman will face a political reality… campaigning. What does it take to make a leader? What price will he be willing to pay? This season will explore today’s world of campaigning, smear tactics, debates, campaign finance, and ‘fake news.’ Democracy, as we know it, will hang in the balance.”

Production will begin later this year for a 2019 launch on the streaming service, which will air seasons 1 and 2 starting this fall.

“The continuation of the show via Netflix is a win-win for all involved,” executive producer Mark Gordon said in a statement. “The story of President Kirkman and those around him has not been fully told, and we look forward to working with our new partner in continuing the show for a global audience.”

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to play President Kirkman for season 3 of Designated Survivor with Netflix, eOne, and Neal Baer,” Sutherland added in a statement. “I believe this format will allow us to continue to delve deeply into storylines and issues concerning the American electorate that were not previously possible.”

After going through several showrunners, ABC pink-slipped Designated Survivor before its upfront presentation in May. The drama only averaged 8.1 million viewers last season and a 1.6 in the 18-49 demographic.

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Facebook, Twitter face threat of regulation as Congress criticizes response to Russia, bias claims

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Facebook and Twitter executives defended their companies on Capitol Hill, saying they are aggressively trying to root out foreign influence as the November elections near. (Sept. 5)
AP

Lawmakers raised the prospect of greater scrutiny of social media companies, ushering in a new era of accountability for the nation’s powerful internet platforms.

During hearings on Capitol Hill, Senate and House Republicans and Democrats applauded efforts by Facebook and Twitter to root out foreign election meddling. But they warned that regulation may loom for social media companies, which are largely unfettered by the kinds of rules that govern other large consumer companies.

Pressure increased on Silicon Valley – and on Facebook in particular – after damaging revelations about Russian-backed influence operations and the Cambridge Analytica data collection scandal. Executives have signed off on the Honest Ads Act, which would mandate more transparency about who runs political ads on social media services.

Facebook and Twitter are gearing up to influence what kind of regulation gets enacted as they face threats from Washington to weaken a law, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, that shields internet companies for the content that people put on their platforms.

“We don’t think it’s a question of whether regulation,” Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg testified during a congressional hearing. “We think it’s a question of the right regulation.”

During Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on foreign election interference that ran more than 2 1/2 hours, lawmakers questioned Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey and Sandberg over their companies’ efforts to disrupt foreign influence campaigns and the spread of disinformation on their platforms. They warned companies’ efforts were falling short before November’s midterm elections as social media users continue to be targeted by foreign actors seeking to exacerbate political divisions in the USA.

“Congress is going to have to take action here,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., warned. “The era of the Wild West in social media is coming to an end. Where we go from here is an open question.”

He said, “The size and reach of your platforms demand that we, as policymakers, do our job, to ensure proper oversight, transparency and protections for American users and for our democratic institutions.”

“If the answer is regulation, let’s have an honest dialogue about what that looks like,” said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

More: Sessions to meet with state AGs on charges social media companies stifle free speech, competition

Related: Twitter apologizes to Meghan McCain for not acting faster to remove a doctored photo showing gun pointed at her

Most alarming to the tech industry is any discussion of further weakening Section 230 protections. Georgetown University’s Larry Downes, project director of the Center for Business and Public Policy, who specializes in regulation, internet and technology policy, said any such move by Washington would be “the scorched earth approach.”

“Removing more of the platforms’ immunity from liability for illegal third-party content, including fraud and libel, would result in drastic reductions in the kinds of content companies would be able to host, notably social networks. It might, as in Europe, make such services effectively impossible,” Downes said. 

That Section 230 was raised in two congressional hearings Wednesday shows how sharply the political climate for technology companies in Washington has changed. 

Within minutes of the Senate hearing wrapping up, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he would meet with several state attorneys general to discuss whether social media companies are “intentionally stifling” free speech and obstructing competition. The remarks escalate charges of anti-conservative bias by President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers. Last week, Trump blasted Google, alleging it muzzles conservative voices.

Dorsey also appeared before a House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting where Republicans sounded the alarm about conservatives being excluded from the auto-fill feature of Twitter’s search and other instances of alleged bias.

“Out of the more than 300 million active Twitter users, why did this only happen to certain accounts?” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., asked Dorsey.

Democrats pushed back on the charges of conservative bias. New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee, accused Republicans of trying to rally the base and raise funds “by fabricating a problem that simply does not exist.”

Twitter shares fell 6 percent Wednesday after Dorsey testified in the Senate hearing that there would have to be “massive shifts” in how Twitter and other social media companies operate. Facebook shares closed down 2 percent.

In a blog post Tuesday timed to the hearings, Federal Communications Commission chief Ajit Pai said Facebook, Google and Twitter offer users too little information into how they work.

“The public deserves to know more about how these companies operate,” he wrote. “And we need to seriously think about whether the time has come for these companies to abide by new transparency obligations.”

Google’s absence from Wednesday’s hearing was repeatedly condemned by senators. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., referred to Google as “the invisible witness,” represented by an empty chair. 

The Senate committee invited Larry Page, chief executive of Google’s parent company Alphabet, but Google declined, offering to send  Kent Walker, its senior vice president for global affairs and a point person on election interference. The committee rejected that.

 

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US Open 2018: Jamie Murray and Bethanie Mattek-Sands reach mixed doubles final

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Jamie Murray and Bethanie Mattek-Sands have reached their first Grand Slam final as a pair
2018 US Open
Venue: Flushing Meadows, New York Dates: 27 August-9 September Coverage: Live radio coverage on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra; live text commentaries on the BBC Sport website

Defending champion Jamie Murray reached a third US Open mixed doubles final with a narrow semi-final victory.

The Briton and his American partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands beat American duo Christina McHale and Christian Harrison in a championship tie-break, coming through 6-4 2-6 10-8.

Murray, 32, will now defend the title he won last year with Martina Hingis.

Earlier on Wednesday, Murray and Bruno Soares were knocked out of the men’s doubles in the quarter-finals.

The 2016 champions and fourth seeds were shocked by unseeded pair Radu Albot and Malek Jaziri, losing 7-5 6-4.

Murray and Mattek-Sands will play Poland’s Alicja Rosolska and Croatia’s Nikola Mektic in Saturday’s mixed final.

“I’m really excited to win – to lose both matches would have been tough,” said Murray.

“But the chance to get into a Grand Slam final again was a big motivation for me and I’m really looking forward to the match.”

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Japan: Dozens missing as powerful quake triggers landslides

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A powerful magnitude 6.6 quake rocked the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido on Thursday, killing eight people, collapsing homes, and triggering landslides that left dozens missing.

Multiple, large-scale landslides struck the sparsely populated countryside, which was also hit by the edge of a powerful typhoon that surged through Japan earlier this week.

Aerial views showed dozens of houses destroyed at the bottom of a hill that was engulfed by a landslide, with a rescue helicopter winching a resident to safety.

Around three million homes lost power after the quake damaged a major thermal plant supplying the region.

The Tomari nuclear power plant in Hokkaido, which was not operational before the quake, was forced to turn to emergency back-up power to keep its cooling system working, said broadcaster NHK.

“There was a sudden, extreme jolt. I felt it went sideways, not up-and-down, for about two to three minutes,” Kazuo Kibayashi, 51, a town official at hard-hit Abira town, told AFP news agency.

“It stopped before shaking started again. I felt it come in two waves. I am 51, and I have never experienced anything like this. I thought my house was going to collapse. Everything inside my house was all jumbled up. I didn’t have time to even start cleaning,” he added.

Moments after the initial quake, an aftershock measuring 5.3 rocked the area and dozens more aftershocks followed throughout the night and into the morning.

Akira Fukui, from the main city of Sapporo, told AFP: “I woke up around 3am with a vertical jolt. I put the light on but it went out shortly afterwards. All the traffic lights are out and there’s no power at work.”

No tsunami warning was issued after the relatively shallow quake, which struck 62km southeast of the regional capital Sapporo.

Around 20,000 rescue workers, including police and members of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) were responding to the disaster, government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said. Another 20,000 SDF troops are expected to join the effort.

“We will do our best to save lives,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after an emergency cabinet meeting.

NHK reported that eight people had lost their lives, six of them in the village of Atsuma, where the landslide engulfed the homes. Nearly 40 people were still missing, the broadcaster added.

Local media said the dead also included an 82-year-old man who fell down the stairs at his home during the quake and that around 130 people had sustained minor injuries.

“I urge people in areas shaken by strong quakes to stay calm, pay attention to evacuation information… and help each other,” Suga added.

Japan is still recovering from the worst typhoon to hit the country in 25 years, which struck the western part of the country on Tuesday, claiming at least 11 lives and causing major damage to the region’s main airport.

‘Ring of fire’

Officials warned of the danger of fresh quakes.

“Large quakes often occur, especially within two to three days (of a big one),” said Toshiyuki Matsumori, in charge of monitoring earthquakes and tsunamis at the meteorological agency.

The risk of housing collapses and landslides had increased, he said, urging residents “to pay full attention to seismic activity and rainfall and not to go into dangerous areas.”

The earthquake also caused travel disruption, with all flights cancelled from Sapporo’s main Chitose airport, where the quake brought down part of a ceiling and burst a water pipe. Local buses and trains and bullet train services were halted.

Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko said it would take “at least a week” for power to be restored to nearly three million homes after a fire in the area’s largest thermal plant was discovered.

And the national meteorological agency warned that more bad weather could be on the way for Hokkaido, urging people to be vigilant for landslides, high tides and heavy rain.

Japan sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where many of the world’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are recorded.

In June, a deadly tremor rocked the Osaka region, killing five people and injuring more than 350.

On March 11, 2011, a devastating 9.0-magnitude quake struck under the Pacific Ocean, and the resulting tsunami caused widespread damage and claimed thousands of lives.

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Roy Moore suing Sacha Baron Cohen for $95 million after his Who is America? appearance

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Former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore has filed a $95 million defamation lawsuit against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Showtime, and CBS after he appeared on Cohen’s series.

The Republican judge, who lost his bid for Senate last year after being accused of initiating sexual relationships with teenagers while in his 30s, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in the D.C. District Court. The suit claims defamation, intentional inflection of emotional distress and fraud.

In July, Moore appeared on the third episode Cohen’s Who is America?, a Showtime series where the comedian disguises himself in interviews with unsuspecting guests ranging from O.J. Simpson to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, among many others. In the episode, Cohen disguised himself as an Israeli anti-terrorism expert and uses a metal detector that “detects pedophiles.”

The lawsuit claims Moore was invited to Washington, D.C., “to receive an award for his strong support for Israel in commemoration of its 70th anniversary as a nation state.” The court document says Moore “would not have agreed to appear” if he had known the outcome.

The lawsuit ultimately claims the “fraudulent portrayal and mocking of Judge Moore as a sex offender” on the television show “severely harmed” his reputation and caused his family “severe emotional distress,” as well as “financial damage.” As a result, Moore is asking for $95 million in damages as well as attorneys’ costs and fees.

“The press has been sent copies of an alleged complaint, yet to our knowledge SHOWTIME has not been served. With that said, we do not comment on pending litigation,” a spokesperson from Showtime told TIME.

Representatives for the Moore family did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

RELATED: Showtime says Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America? might return for season 2

In the July episode, Cohen, disguised as the fake “Erran Morad,” uses a metal detector that he claims “is used in schools and playgrounds” to detect pedophiles. When he uses it on Moore, the wand beeps.

“It must be faulty. It’s malfunctioning,” Cohen says in the episode. “Is this your jacket? Did you lend the jacket to somebody else?”

“I’ve been married for 33 (years),” Moore replies. “I’ve never had such an accusation of things.”

“If this is an instrument,” he continues, “certainly, I’m not a pedophile.” Moore then cut the rest of the interview off.

The episode came months after a number of women came forward with allegations against Moore, accusing him of initiating sexual relationships with them when they were in high school and he was an adult. The allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, came out as he was running for Alabama’s open Senate seat. He ultimately lost to Democrat Doug Jones.

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‘Lodestar’ John McCain quoted in anonymous ‘New York Times’ essay attacking Donald Trump

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President Donald Trump says it’s “really a disgrace” that an unsigned op-ed critical of him and written by a senior administration official has been published. (Sept. 5)
AP

In the anonymous opinion essay published Wednesday by the New York Times, a senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration invoked the name of the late Sen. John McCain, who in a farewell letter warned tribal politics would weaken the nation and called on Americans to work together in an era of extreme partisanship.

The op-ed described a coordinated and far-reaching “resistance” movement within the administration that is working to “preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses.”

In the op-ed, the author wrote: “Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.

“We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.”

The writer cast Trump as an immoral, erratic and irresponsible president who has lost the confidence of his aides. The result, according to the author, is a “two-track presidency” that is quietly working around Trump to “steer the administration in the right direction until the end of his presidency.”

Trump slammed the op-ed as “gutless” and questioned whether the author of the piece exists. The president called on the newspaper to immediately turn the author over to the government. 

McCain died Aug. 25 after a 13-month battle with brain cancer.

In his farewell letter, McCain praised America’s role in liberating “more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history.”

The six-term senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee said the country’s standing and ideals are threatened “when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries … We weaken it when we hide behind walls rather than tear them down.”

McCain ended his letter on an optimistic note, saying Americans will get through the challenges facing the country by working together.

“Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here,” McCain wrote. “Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.”

Follow the reporter on Twitter @yvonnewingett and on Facebook. Contact her at yvonne.wingett@arizonarepublic.com.

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Colorado Rockies’ Trevor Story crushes monster 505-foot home run, longest of Statcast era

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SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports’ Bob Nightengale discusses what will be an exciting race to the finish for these teams looking to secure a wild card spot.
USA TODAY

Situated in the thin, mile-high air of Denver, Coors Field has been a power hitter’s paradise since it opened in 1995. Colorado Rockies slugger Trevor Story took advantage of the conditions Wednesday night to crush a home run that traveled a very, very long way.

Story connected off San Francisco Giants starter Andrew Suarez in the fourth inning for a monster 505-foot blast that cleared all the seats in left field and landed on the concourse beyond.

According to the folks at Statcast, it was baseball’s longest home run since their tracking technology debuted in 2015. The homer was Story’s second of the night, coming on the heels of a 459-foot shot in the first inning.

Story wasn’t done and added a third home run in the sixth inning to give him a career-high 31 on the season. The third-year shortstop came up in the eighth with a chance to tie the MLB single-game record of four homers, but he struck out swinging against Giants reliever Ray Black.

The three home runs helped the first-place Rockies win 5-3 and move 1½ games ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers in a tight NL West race.

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