North America

Hawaii  (AP) —In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows -- those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.

Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

NEW YORK (AP) — For former President Donald Trump, a picture is worth... more than $7 million.

Trump’s campaign says he has raised $7.1 million since Thursday when he was booked at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on charges that he illegally schemed to overturn the 2020 election in the state and became the first former president in U.S. history to ever have a mug shot taken.

Spokesman Steven Cheung said that, on Friday alone, the campaign brought in $4.18 million — its highest-grossing day to date.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is the latest member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet to visit China as his administration tries to mend the deteriorating ties between the world’s two largest economies. She promises to be “practical” without compromising the U.S. push to “responsibly” manage that economic relationship.

Raimondo plans meetings with Chinese officials and U.S. business leaders in Beijing and Shanghai in an effort to “promote a healthy competition, a competition on a level playing field, playing by the rules.”

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A powerful gang opened fire Saturday on a large group of parishioners led by a pastor as they marched through a community armed with machetes to rid the area of gang members.

The attack was filmed in real time by journalists at the scene, and several people were killed and others injured, Marie Yolène Gilles, director of human rights group Fondasyon Je Klere, told The Associated Press.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Forecasters are warning of possible flash flooding and landslides across the eastern Yucatan peninsula and western Cuba, and Florida braced for a possible hurricane by midweek, as a weather system off the coast of Mexico was expected to become a tropical storm by Sunday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The pastor of a church near the site of the racist fatal shooting of three Black people told congregants Sunday to follow Jesus Christ’s example and keep their sadness from turning to rage.

The Saturday shooting came on the same day thousands visited Washington, D.C., to attend the Rev. Al Sharpton’s 60th anniversary commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic “I Have A Dream” speech.

JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming, Aug 26 (Reuters) - U.S. trade has shifted away from China due to policies enacted by the Biden and Trump administrations, but U.S. reliance on China-linked supply chains has not necessarily been reduced and consumers have faced higher costs, according to new research presented on Saturday at a Federal Reserve economic symposium.

WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Donald Trump leads Ron DeSantis by nearly 40 percentage points in the race for the Republican presidential nomination even after declining to debate the Florida governor and other rivals, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Friday.

The survey found that half of Republican respondents who followed the party's first debate on Wednesday were more open to DeSantis' bid - good news for a campaign banking on the event boosting his profile after a summer slide in opinion polls.

WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump's historic mug shot, posted by a Georgia courthouse on Thursday evening, is being turned into T-shirts, shot glasses, mugs, posters and even bobblehead dolls by friends and foes alike.

The shot of Trump with a red tie, glistening hair, and an icy scowl was taken as the Republican presidential front-runner was arrested on more than a dozen felony charges, part of a criminal case stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Aug 25 (Reuters) - Wildfires in Canada's Northwest Territories on Friday forced the evacuation of the entire town of Hay River, a community of about 4,000 people on the Great Slave Lake, authorities said.

The government of the Northwest Territories ordered everyone in town, including essential workers, to go to the Hay River Merlyn Carter Airport and await further instructions.