North America

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- UN peacekeepers are speeding their withdrawal from the Ber base near Timbuktu, Mali, because of a deteriorating security situation, a UN spokesman said on Monday.

Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the peacekeepers from the mission known as MINUSMA notified the Malian authorities they were leaving a day early because of risks to the safety and security of UN personnel.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — The number of deaths caused by the Maui wildfires stood at 99 Monday, a figure that is likely to increase as search crews comb neighborhoods where flames moved as fast as a mile a minute.

The blazes that consumed most of the historic town of Lahaina are already the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century. The cause was under investigation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States, Japan and South Korea are expected to announce plans for expanded military cooperation on ballistic missile defenses and technology development in the face of growing concern about North Korea’s nuclear program when the countries’ leaders gather at Camp David for a summit Friday, according to two senior Biden administration officials.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a show of preemptive counterprogramming, President Joe Biden on Tuesday travels to Wisconsin to highlight his economic policies in a state critical to his reelection fortunes, just a week before Republicans descend on Milwaukee for the party’s first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign.

His trip comes on the eve of the anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, major economic legislation that he signed into law with great ceremony — although polls show most people know little about it or what it does.

ATLANTA (AP) — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened her investigation into Donald Trump after the release of a recording of a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger.

Trump suggested during the call that Raffensperger, a Republican and the state’s top elections official, could help “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, with prosecutors using a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power.

MEXICO CITY, Aug 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The families of 40 people who died in a fire at a detention center for undocumented migrants in a Mexican border town in March will receive more than $8 million each, the government said.

According to Mexican authorities, the fire in Ciudad Juarez, on the border with the US city of El Paso, started when a migrant set fire to the mattress in his cell, where he was being held with 67 other men, to protest his possible deportation.

PHILADELPHIA (US), Aug 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Three men were killed and a fourth remains hospitalized after they were shot on a basketball court in Philadelphia.

The shooting occurred just before 6 p.m. on Friday at the 8th and Diamond courts in North Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police Department confirmed to PEOPLE. Police said five males began firing at a group of people gathered on the court before fleeing the area.

WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy on Monday became the third branch of the military to no longer have a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time in history, as a Republican senator continues to block military nominations.

Retiring Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday gave up command on Monday. The Navy, Army and Marine Corps are now all without a confirmed leader.

"This is unprecedented. It is unnecessary. And it is unsafe," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a relinquishment ceremony at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - COVID infections and hospitalizations are on the rise in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Health officials are pointing at the EG.5 "Eris" coronavirus, a subvariant of the Omicron lineage that originally emerged November of 2021.

WHAT IS THE NEW 'ERIS' VARIANT?

The World Health Organization (WHO) classified EG.5, which has been nicknamed by some as "Eris", as a "variant of interest," indicating that it should be more closely watched than others because of mutations that might make it more contagious or severe.