USA

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Arson is suspected as the cause of a July 12 fire that left extensive damage to the USS Bonhomme Richard docked off San Diego, and a U.S. Navy sailor was being questioned as a potential suspect, a senior defense official said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Wednesday there has been no intelligence to suggest that foreign countries are working to undermine mail-in voting and no signs of any coordinated effort to commit widespread fraud through the vote-by-mail process, despite numerous claims made by President Donald Trump in recent months.

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A white, 17-year-old police admirer was arrested Wednesday after two people were shot to death during a third straight night of protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake.

Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, about 15 miles from Kenosha, was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide in the attack Tuesday that was largely captured on cellphone video. The shooting left a third person wounded.

DELCAMBRE, La. (AP) — Laura strengthened Wednesday into a menacing Category 4 hurricane, raising fears of a 20-foot storm surge that forecasters said would be “unsurvivable” and capable of sinking entire communities. Ocean water topped by white-capped waves began rising ominously as the monster neared land.

Authorities implored coastal residents of Texas and Louisiana to evacuate, but not everyone did before winds began buffeting trees back and forth.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans opened the third night of their convention with an aggressive defense of law enforcement, as the nation faced renewed tensions following the police shooting of a Black man in Wisconsin that has sparked three nights of protests in a state that could decide the fall election.

The opening speakers seized on the national reckoning over racial injustice to argue that Democratic leaders are allowing lawlessness to prevail in cities from coast to coast.

NEW YORK, Aug 25 (APP): US President Donald Trump has warned his fellow Republicans their opponents — the Democrats — may “steal” November’s election, as his party anointed him as their presidential candidate.

“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,’ he told delegates in Charlotte, North Carolina.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday said it will provide $625 million over the next five years for five newly formed quantum information research hubs as it tries to keep ahead of competing nations like China on the emerging technology.

The funding is part of $1.2 billion earmarked in the National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will nominate acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to formally lead the agency.

Trump announced the decision in a tweet, saying that "Chad has done an outstanding job and we greatly appreciate his service!"

Wolf has been acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since November 2019. The permanent position has been vacant since Kirstjen Nielsen resigned earlier that year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Responding to an outcry from medical experts, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Tuesday apologized for overstating the life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma.

Scientists and medical experts have been pushing back against the claims about the treatment since President Donald Trump’s announcement on Sunday that the FDA had decided to issue emergency authorization for convalescent plasma, taken from patients who have recovered from the coronavirus and rich in disease-fighting antibodies.

(AP) --- When Washington, D.C.’s NFL team dropped the offensive reference to Native Americans from its name last month after decades of resistance, activist Frances Danger knew why: the Black Lives Matter movement.

Danger said the change would never have happened without the massive marches to protest the death of an African American man under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis.