North America

CINCINNATI (AP) — Aissata Sall was scrolling through WhatsApp in May when she first learned about the new route to the United States. For Ibrahima Sow, the discovery came on TikTok a few weeks later.

By the time their paths crossed at the tidy one-story brick house in Cincinnati, they had encountered hundreds of other Mauritanians, nearly all of them following a new path surging in popularity among younger migrants from the West African nation, thanks largely to social media.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tropical Storm Hilary drenched Southern California from the coast to the desert resort city of Palm Springs and inland mountains, forcing rescuers to pull several people from swollen rivers.

By early Monday, remnants of the storm that first brought soaking rains to Mexico’s arid Baja California peninsula and the border city of Tijuana, threatened Nevada and as far north as Oregon and Idaho with flooding.

Southern Californians were battling flooded roads, mudslides and downed trees.

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. urged China on Saturday to stop pressuring Taiwan, after Beijing launched military drills around the democratically governed island in response to Taiwan Vice President William Lai's U.S. visit.

"We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan," a State Department spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.

The U.S. would continue to monitor the exercises closely, the department statement said.

KIHEI, Hawaii, Aug 20 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell said on Sunday that President Joe Biden will reassure the people of Lahaina that they will be in control of how they rebuild when he visits the razed Maui community on Monday.

The president along with the first lady plan to visit the historic Hawaiian town and meet with first responders, local officials and victims and get a firsthand look at the widespread devastation, Criswell said on CNN's "State Of The Union" show.

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is asking a federal court to dismiss Georgia state criminal charges against him stemming from former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election, according to a court document.

Meadows claims that his alleged actions, including participating with Trump in a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, should be immune from state prosecution because they were performed in his capacity as a federal official.

MEXICO CITY, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Tropical storm Hilary made landfall over the Baja California peninsula on Sunday, pelting the region with intense rain and heading toward the U.S. Southwest, where forecasters warned of life-threatening and "catastrophic" flooding.

One person died in Mexico amid reports of flash flooding in the peninsula, where some roads were swept away and images on social media showed raging torrents gushing down city streets that have been turned into rivers.

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - A prominent U.S. Senate Republican on Sunday said former President Donald Trump should drop out of the 2024 Republican White House race, arguing that Trump cannot win a general election contest against Democratic President Joe Biden.

Senator Bill Cassidy, one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump at the former president's second impeachment trial in 2021, described a federal documents case against Trump as "almost a slam dunk" and warned that voters would not elect someone convicted of a crime as president.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — An officer responding to a domestic violence call fatally shot a man after the suspect stabbed another officer in the neck with a knife Sunday morning in Charlotte, North Carolina, authorities said.

The officers heard gunshots from inside the apartment just before 8 a.m. and forced their way inside, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings said in a video statement posted to social media.

The two officers encountered a male suspect and began a struggle to take him into custody, Jennings said.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Firefighters battling wildfires in western Canada received help from reinforcements and milder weather Saturday, after the nation’s worst fire season on record destroyed structures, fouled the air with thick smoke and prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of residents.

HOUSTON (AP) — Sylvia Ann Miller-Scarborough remembers when people of color had to pay a poll tax to vote in Houston. She recalls her grandmother, undeterred by such obstacles, reminding her how important it was to be heard at the ballot box.

Miller-Scarborough worries that much of the hard-won progress she’s seen in more than a half-century of voting in the largest county in Texas could be erased by Republican lawmakers. And she says it’s gotten harder to convince her own grandchildren that it matters.