North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — A defiant President Joe Biden rejected blame for chaotic scenes of Afghans clinging to U.S. military planes in Kabul in a desperate bid to flee their home country after the Taliban’s easy victory over an Afghan military that America and NATO allies had spent two decades trying to build.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Three tropical systems were churning early Monday in the Atlantic basin and threatening to impact the U.S. Gulf Coast, some Caribbean islands including earthquake-damaged Haiti, and the island territory of Bermuda.

Tropical Storm Fred was located in the Gulf of Mexico and could make landfall by Monday evening along the Florida Panhandle, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. A tropical storm warning and a storm surge warning were in effect for coastal areas.

QUINCY, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of homes in Northern California remain threatened by the nation’s largest wildfire as unstable weather creates a high danger of new blazes erupting across the West.

Weekend thunderstorms across the northern Sierra didn’t produce much rain, instead whipping up winds and unleashing lightning strikes that that bedeviled the more than 6,000 firefighters trying to contain the month-old Dixie Fire amid temperatures forecast to top 100 degrees (38 Celsius).

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig on Monday called for strengthening law enforcement amid what he labeled a public safety “crisis,” announcing several moves to focus on policing while he prepares to formally run for Michigan governor.

WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s top general said the United States could now face a rise in terrorist threats from a Taliban-run Afghanistan. That warning comes as intelligence agencies charged with anticipating those threats face new questions after the U.S.-backed Afghan military collapsed with shocking speed.

LES CAYES, Haiti (AP) — Under Haiti’s burning heat, Jennie Auguste lies with a lost, thousand-yard stare on a flimsy foam mattress placed on an airport’s tarmac. A resident of the southwestern part of the Caribbean nation, Auguste has wounds in the chest, abdomen and arm after the roof of the store she worked at collapsed during a powerful earthquake over the weekend.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and other top U.S. officials were stunned on Sunday by the pace of the Taliban’s nearly complete takeover of Afghanistan, as the planned withdrawal of American forces urgently became a mission to ensure a safe evacuation.

The speed of the Afghan government’s collapse and the ensuing chaos posed the most serious test of Biden as commander in chief, and he was the subject of withering criticism from Republicans who said that he had failed.

OTTAWA, Aug 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to call snap elections for Sept 20 to seek a new mandate to steer the nation’s pandemic exit, much to the dismay of his rival parties.
 
In office since 2015, Trudeau and opposition leaders have been crisscrossing the country in recent weeks making election-style announcements in anticipation.
 
On Sunday, he will visit the governor general to ask her to dissolve parliament, triggering a general election that polling shows is likely to return his Liberals to power.
 

NEW YORK, Aug 15 (NNN-Xinhua) — A tour bus rollover in New York State on Saturday left dozens of people injured, New York State Police said.

At approximately 12:41 p.m. local time, New York State Police responded to a rollover crash involving a tour bus on a toll road in the town of Brutus in Cayuga County in central New York State, said the State Police in a press release.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called on Taliban militants to immediately halt their offensive against government forces and return to the negotiating table in good faith, in the interest of Afghanistan, and its people.

The top UN official told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York that humanitarian needs were "growing by the hour" and the country largely spinning out of control.