NEW YORK (AP) — As he gears up for reelection, President Joe Biden is already facing questions about his ability to convince voters that the economy is performing well. There’s skepticism about the 80-year-old president’s ability to manage a second term. And on Friday, Biden faced a fresh setback when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to probe his son, Hunter.

11 August 2023; MEMO: Britain has removed migrants from a residential barge less than a week after they moved in, after Legionella bacteria was found in the water supply, the government said on Friday, Reuters reports.

Britain had begun moving some migrants on to the large "Bibby Stockholm" barge on its southern coast at the beginning of the week as part of its high-profile strategy to deter asylum seekers from arriving in the country.

11 August 2023; MEMO: China's energy company, Sungrow, said this week that it will provide its inverter skid technology and 1+X modular inverter solution for a 2.2 Gigawatt (GW) solar plant that Neom Green Hydrogen Company (NGHC) is building in Oxagon. The project site is in a port area close to the futuristic Neom City project, Reuters reports.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel Friday in the Hunter Biden probe, a surprise move that intensifies the investigation into the president’s son ahead of the 2024 election.

Garland noted the “extraordinary circumstances” of the matter as he named David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who had already been probing Hunter Biden’s financial dealings, as special counsel after plea deal talks in the case broke down.

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Dogs trained to find bodies sniffed through piles of rubble and ash as stunned survivors of deadly wildfires that killed at least 80 people on the Hawaiian island of Maui took stock of their shattered lives and tried to imagine rebuilding from nothing.

The only items Summer and Gilles Gerling were able to retrieve from the detritus-filled lot where their home once stood in Lahaina were a piggy bank Summer’s father gave her as a child, their daughter’s jade bracelet and watches they gifted each other for their wedding. Their wedding rings were gone.

11 August 2023; MEMO: Iran may free five detained US citizens as part of a deal, under which $6 billion in Iranian funds in South Korea would be unfrozen, and has moved four of them from jail to house arrest, Reuters reports.

The following are the prisoners in Iran who will be moved to house arrest:

ISLAMABAD (AP) — An investigation has been launched into the death of a Pakistani porter near the peak of the world’s most treacherous mountain, a Pakistani mountaineer said Saturday, following allegations that dozens of climbers eager to reach the summit had walked past the man after he was gravely injured in a fall.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A 3-year-old child riding one of Texas’ migrant buses died while on the way to Chicago, officials said Friday, the first time the state has announced a death since it began shuttling thousands of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border last year.

Texas authorities confirmed a child’s death in a statement Friday but did not say where the child was from or why they became ill. The Illinois Department of Public Health said the child was 3 years old and died Thursday in Marion County, in the southern part of that state.

11 August 2023; MEMO: Israel's intelligence agency, Shin Bet, said it thwarted an Iranian espionage attempt on Friday when it detained and then deported a Jewish-Iranian who flew into the country with a tissue box it said was meant to hide surveillance equipment, Reuters reports.

11 August 2023; MEMO: Israeli police downgraded a homicide charge, on Friday, against an illegal Jewish settler suspected of killing a Palestinian in what the United States has described as a "terror attack", Reuters reports.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After nearly three weeks of appealing to the United States and other allies for help restoring Niger’s president to power, friends and supporters of the democratically elected leader are making a simpler plea: Save his life.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia thwarted an attack by 20 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow-annexed Crimea overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.

Fourteen drones were shot down by Russian air defenses and a further six were jammed electronically, the ministry said in a Telegram post. No casualties or damage were reported. Kyiv officials neither confirmed nor denied Ukraine’s involvement in the attacks.