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USA: Charlotte police fatally shoot man who stabbed officer in the neck, authorities say

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.

USA: Houstonians worry new laws will deter voters who don’t recall the hard-won fight for voting rights

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.

USA: Federal judges rule against provisions of GOP-backed voting laws in Georgia and Texas

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Federal judges in Georgia and Texas have ruled against key provisions of two controversial election laws passed two years ago as the Republican Party sought to tighten voting rules after former President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential contest.

USA: Trump looms large over Iowa State Fair, but many GOP voters still mulling their caucus choices

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The loop Donald Trump’s private jet made above the Iowa State Fair before his visit last weekend was more than just a gesture to the hundreds of supporters — and a few rival candidates — on the ground. It was a reminder that the four-time indicted former president casts a Boeing 757-sized shadow over the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

USA: Trump’s lies tested limits of the bully pulpit. His right to say them is at core of criminal defense

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama, mindful of the urgent power of a president’s words, liked to say he was guarded with his language because anything he said could send troops marching or markets tumbling.

His successor, Donald Trump, showed no such restraint.

Now Trump is facing dozens of criminal charges in four separate indictments, two ofthem anchored in the Republican’s lie that he did not lose the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. And Trump’s propensity for falsehoods and his right to utter them are at the core of his legal defense.

USA: 1 dead, 185 structures destroyed in eastern Washington wildfire

MEDICAL LAKE, Wash. (AP) — A wind-driven wildfire in eastern Washington state has destroyed at least 185 structures, closed a major highway and left one person dead, authorities said Saturday.

The blaze began shortly after midday Friday on the west side of Medical Lake, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of Spokane, and then expanded, Washington State Department of Natural Resources spokesperson Isabelle Hoygaard said.

USA: Hot air balloon pilot with cocaine in his system made a mistake that caused fatal crash, NTSB finds

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A mistake made by a hot air balloon pilot who had drugs including cocaine in his system caused a crash in 2021 in New Mexico that killed all five people on board, investigators have determined.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in its final report released this week that pilot Nicholas Meleski did not maintain enough clearance from power lines while trying to land. He hit the power lines and crashed into a busy intersection. The report said investigators found no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures.

USA: Starbucks told to pay $2.7 million more to ex-manager awarded $25.6 million over firing

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A judge has ordered Starbucks to pay an additional $2.7 million to a former regional manager earlier awarded more than $25 million after she alleged she that and other white employees were unfairly punished after the high-profile arrests of two Black men at a Philadelphia location in 2018.

In June, Shannon Phillips won $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages after a jury in New Jersey found that race was a determinative factor in Phillips’ firing, in violation of federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

US warns space companies about foreign spying

WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (Reuters) - U.S. counterintelligence agencies on Friday warned the American space industry to guard against efforts by foreign intelligence entities to steal research and trade secrets as they try to boost their own countries' space programs.

"We anticipate growing threats to this burgeoning sector of the U.S. economy," a U.S. counterintelligence official told Reuters, adding that "China and Russia are among the leading foreign intelligence threats to the U.S. space industry."

USA: Trump to skip Republican debate, interview with ex-Fox host Carlson -NYT

WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump plans to skip the first Republican primary debate next week and instead sit for an online interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the matter.

Trump has for months suggested that he would likely pass on Wednesday night's debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, arguing that it did not make sense to give others a change to attack him given his sizeable lead among Republicans in national polls.

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