USA

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Firefighters and officials at California’s largest utility company braced for hot, dry and windy weather in northern and central areas of the state this weekend that may fan the flames of several major wildfires or ignite new ones.

Pacific Gas & Electric warned Friday it may cut power from Sunday morning to Monday, potentially affecting 97,000 customers in 16 counties, during which forecasters said a ridge of high pressure will raise temperatures and generate gusts flowing from the interior to the coast.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s campaign has grown increasingly focused on making inroads in Pennsylvania to offset potential vulnerabilities in other battlegrounds.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s leading steward of public lands has been serving unlawfully, blocking him from continuing in the position in the latest pushback against the administration’s practice of filling key positions without U.S. Senate approval.

U.S. Interior Department Bureau of Land Management acting director William Perry Pendley served unlawfully for 424 days without being confirmed to the post by the Senate as required under the Constitution, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris determined.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The news release from a U.S. attorney in Pennsylvania was provocative: Nine mailed-in military ballots had been “discarded” by the local election office in a swing county of one of the most important presidential battleground states.

All of them were marked for President Donald Trump, it said. Then came another news release with key details changed — the presidential choice was unknown on two of the ballots because they had been resealed — but still little explanation of what had happened and whether investigators believed a criminal act had occurred.

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — It began with devastation in the New York City area, followed by a summertime crisis in the Sun Belt. Now the coronavirus outbreak is heating up fast in smaller cities in the heartland, often in conservative corners of America where anti-mask sentiment runs high.

Elsewhere around the country, Florida’s Republican governor lifted all restrictions on restaurants and other businesses Friday and all but set aside local mask ordinances in the political battleground state, in a move attacked by Democrats as hasty.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to announce Saturday that he is nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court as he aims to put a historic conservative stamp on the high court just weeks before the election.

Trump said Friday he had made up his mind and it was “very exciting,” without giving away the name, aiming to maintain some suspense around his personal announcement. But the White House indicated to congressional Republicans and outside allies that the pick was Barrett.

NEW YORK, Sep 25 (APP): An elderly Indian Muslim woman, who became the face of last winter’s extraordinary female-led protest in New Delhi against India’s anti-Muslim citizenship law, is on Time magazine’s list of 100 “Most Influential People of 2020”.

Bilkis, 82, was part of hundreds and thousands of women, who peacefully protested against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) imposed by the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Shaheen Bagh, a largely Muslim neighourhood of New Delhi.

KANSAS CITY, Sept 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) —The FBI is to investigate the fatal police shooting of a teenage boy as he reversed a vehicle out his family’s garage in the US state of Kansas.

A police officer fired 13 shots, killing John Albers, 17, on Jan 20, 2018 in a Kansas City suburb.

Police had been called to check on the boy, who had ADHD, after his online posts prompted fears for his safety.

A month after the shooting the county prosecutor announced the officer, Clayton Jenison, would not be charged.

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Greece next week in a show of support following high tensions in the Mediterranean with Turkey, the State Department announced.

Pompeo will also travel to Italy, with a stop in Vatican City, to discuss religious freedom, and Croatia on the Sept 27-Oct 2 trip.

In his second trip to Greece in less than a year, Pompeo will go both to the northern city of Thessaloniki and the southern island of Crete, where he will meet with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Friday denigrated FBI Director Christopher Wray’s ability to detect voter fraud in the U.S. election and suggested that if he “drill down” more he would change his congressional testimony on the issue.

Wray told lawmakers on Thursday he has not seen evidence of a coordinated national voter fraud effort, undercutting President Donald Trump’s unfounded assault on mail-in balloting as a threat to election security.