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Torrential rains unleashed devastating floods in Appalachia on Thursday, as fast-rising water killed at least eight people in Kentucky and sent people scurrying to rooftops to be rescued. Water gushed from hillsides and flooded out of streambeds, inundating homes, businesses and roads throughout eastern Kentucky. Parts of western Virginia and southern West Virginia also saw extensive flooding. Rescue crews used helicopters and boats to pick up people trapped by floodwaters. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear tweeted Thursday evening that the state’s death toll from flooding had risen to eight. He asked for continued prayers for the region, which was bracing for more rain. “In a word, this event is devastating,” Beshear said earlier in the day. “And I do believe it will end up being one of the most significant, deadly floods that we have had in Kentucky in at least a very long time.” In Breathitt County in Kentucky, Krystal Holbrook’s family raced against surging floodwaters in the early morning hours to move possessions to higher ground. Their ordeal began around 4 a.m. Thursday, as they scurried in the dark to move vehicles, campers, trailers and farm equipment. But as the water kept rising throughout the day, the concern was that “higher ground is getting a little bit difficult,” she said. “It looks like a huge lake back here,” she said. Beshear warned that property damage in Kentucky would be widespread. The governor said officials were setting up a site for donations that would go to residents affected by the flooding. Dangerous conditions and continued rainfall hampered rescue efforts Thursday, the governor said. “We’ve got a lot of people that need help that we can’t get to at the moment,” Beshear said. “We will.” Flash flooding and mudslides were reported across the mountainous region of eastern Kentucky, western Virginia and southern West Virginia, where thunderstorms dumped several inches of rain over the past few days. With more rain expected in the area, the National Weather Service said additional flooding was possible into Friday in much of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia. Forecasters said the highest threat of flash flooding was expected to shift farther east into West Virginia. Read: US economy shrinks for a 2nd quarter, raising recession fear Poweroutage.us reported more than 31,000 customers without electricity in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia, with the bulk of the outages in Kentucky. “There are a lot of people in eastern Kentucky on top of roofs waiting to be rescued,” Beshear said earlier Thursday. “There are a number of people that are unaccounted for and I’m nearly certain this is a situation where we are going to lose some of them.” Rescue crews worked throughout the night helping people stranded by the rising waters in eastern Kentucky’s Perry County, where Emergency Management Director Jerry Stacy called it a “catastrophic event.” We’re just in the rescue mode right now,” Stacy said, speaking with The Associated Press by phone as he struggled to reach his office in Hazard. “Extreme flash flooding and mudslides are just everywhere.” The storms hit an Appalachian mountain region where communities and homes are perched on steep hillsides or set deep in the hollows between them, where creeks and streams can rise in a hurry. But this one is far worse than a typical flood, said Stacy, 54.  “I’ve lived here in Perry County all my life and this is by the far the worst event I’ve ever seen,” he said. Roads in many areas weren’t passable after as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain had fallen in some areas by Thursday, and 1-3 more inches (7.5 centimeters) could fall, the National Weather Service said. Beshear said he has deployed National Guard soldiers to the hardest-hit areas, and three parks in the region were opened as shelters for displaced people. Breathitt County’s courthouse was opened overnight in Kentucky, and Emergency Management Director Chris Friley said the Old Montessori School would provide more permanent shelter once crews can staff it. Perry County dispatchers told WKYT-TV that floodwaters washed out roads and bridges and knocked homes off foundations. The city of Hazard said rescue crews were out all night, urging people on Facebook to stay off roads and “pray for a break in the rain.”  In West Virginia’s Greenbrier County, firefighters pulled people from flooded homes, and five campers who got stranded by high water in Nicholas County were rescued by the Keslers Cross Lanes Volunteer Fire Department, WCHS-TV reported. Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for six counties in West Virginia after severe thunderstorms this week caused significant local flooding, downed trees, power outages and blocked roads. Communities in southwest Virginia also were flooding, and the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, Virginia, warned of more showers and storms on Thursday.

President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping held the fifth conversation of their presidencies on Thursday, speaking for more than two hours as they chart the future of their complicated relationship at a time of simmering economic and geopolitical tensions. The call began at 8:33 a.m. EDT and ended at 10:50 a.m. EDT, according to the White House. It took place as Biden aims to find new ways to work with the rising global power as well as strategies to contain China’s influence around the world. Differing perspectives on global health, economic policy and human rights have long tested the relationship — with China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine adding further strain. “The two heads of state had in-depth communication and exchanges on China-U.S. relations and issues of mutual concern,” China Central Television reported on its website. The latest pressure point has been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan, the island that governs itself democratically and receives informal defensive support from the U.S., but which China considers part of its territory. Beijing has said it would view such a trip as a provocation, a threat U.S. officials are taking with heightened seriousness in light of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. “If the U.S. insists on going its own way and challenging China’s bottom line, it will surely be met with forceful responses,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters earlier this week. “All ensuing consequences shall be borne by the U.S.” Pelosi would be the highest-ranking U.S. elected official to travel to Taiwan since Republican Newt Gingrich visited the island in 1997 when he was House speaker. Biden last week told reporters that U.S. military officials believed it was “not a good idea” for the speaker to visit the island at the moment. John Kirby, a U.S. national security spokesman, said Wednesday that it was important for Biden and Xi to regularly touch base. Read: Doctor: Biden’s COVID symptoms ‘almost completely resolved’ “The president wants to make sure that the lines of communication with President Xi remain open because they need to,” Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing. “There are issues where we can cooperate with China on, and there are issues where obviously there are friction and tension.” Biden and Xi last spoke in March, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “This is one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world today, with ramifications well beyond both individual countries,” Kirby said. The conversation comes as Biden has moved to shift U.S. reliance off Chinese manufacturing, including Senate passage Wednesday of legislation to encourage semiconductor companies to build more high-tech plants in the U.S. Biden wants to marshal global democracies to support infrastructure investments in low- and middle-income nations as an alternative to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” which aims to boost China trade with other global markets. Kirby listed a number of areas of U.S,-China friction that he said would be part of the conversation, including “tensions over Taiwan, tensions over ... China’s aggressive course of behavior in the Indo-Pacific outside of Taiwan, tensions in the economic relationship” and over China’s reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Biden, who has kept in place Trump-era tariffs on many Chinese-manufactured goods in order to maintain leverage over Beijing, is weighing whether to ease at least some of them in a move to lessen the impact of soaring inflation on American households. U.S. officials have also criticized China’s “zero-COVID” policy of mass testing and lockdowns in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 in its territory, labeling it misguided and fretting that it will further slow global economic growth. Other points of strain include China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, which the U.S. has declared a genocide, its militarization in the South China Sea, and global campaign of economic and political espionage.

The U.S. economy shrank from April through June for a second straight quarter, contracting at a 0.9% annual pace and raising fears that the nation may be approaching a recession. The decline that the Commerce Department reported Thursday in the gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of the economy — followed a 1.6% annual drop from January through March. Consecutive quarters of falling GDP constitute one informal, though not definitive, indicator of a recession. The GDP report for last quarter pointed to weakness across the economy. Consumer spending slowed as Americans bought fewer goods. Business investment fell. Inventories tumbled as businesses slowed their restocking of shelves, shaving 2 percentage points from GDP. Higher borrowing rates, a consequence of the Federal Reserve’s series of rate hikes, clobbered home construction, which shrank at a 14% annual rate. Government spending dropped, too. The report comes at a critical time. Consumers and businesses have been struggling under the weight of punishing inflation and higher loan costs. On Wednesday, the Fed raised its benchmark rate by a sizable three-quarters of a point for a second straight time in its push to conquer the worst inflation outbreak in four decades. The Fed is hoping to achieve a notoriously difficult “soft landing”: An economic slowdown that manages to rein in rocketing prices without triggering a recession. Apart from the United States, the global economy as a whole is also grappling with high inflation and weakening growth, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy and food prices soaring. Europe, highly dependent on Russian natural gas, appears especially vulnerable to a recession. In the United States, the inflation surge and fear of a recession have eroded consumer confidence and stirred anxiety about the economy, which is sending frustratingly mixed signals. And with the November midterm elections nearing, Americans’ discontent has diminished President Joe Biden’s public approval ratings and could increase the likelihood that the Democrats will lose control of the House and Senate. Read: US economy grew at solid 3.1% rate in first quarter Fed Chair Jerome Powell and many economists have said that while the economy is showing some weakening, they doubt it’s in recession. Many of them point, in particular, to a still-robust labor market, with 11 million job openings and an uncommonly low 3.6% unemployment rate, to suggest that a recession, if one does occur, isn’t here yet. “The back-to-back contraction of GDP will feed the debate about whether the U.S. is in, or soon headed for, a recession,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “The fact that the economy created 2.7 million payrolls in the first half of the year would seem to argue against an official recession call for now.” Still, Guatieri said, “the economy has quickly lost steam in the face of four-decade high inflation, rapidly rising borrowing costs and a general tightening in financial conditions.” In the meantime, Congress may be moving toward approving action to fight inflation under an agreement announced Wednesday by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. Among other things, the measure would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, and the new revenue would be used to lower costs for seniors on medications. In the wake of Thursday’s second straight negative GDP report, Biden downplayed the news, pointing to continued low unemployment and strong hiring. “Coming off of last year’s historic economic growth — and regaining all the private-sector jobs lost during the pandemic crisis — it’s no surprise that the economy is slowing down as the Federal Reserve acts to bring down inflation,” the president said in a statement. “But even as we face historic global challenges, we are on the right path and we will come through this transition stronger and more secure.” The government’s first of three estimates of GDP for the April-June quarter marked a drastic weakening from the 5.7% growth the economy achieved last year. That was the fastest calendar-year expansion since 1984, reflecting how vigorously the economy roared back from the brief but brutal pandemic recession of 2020. But since then, the combination of mounting prices and higher borrowing costs have taken a toll. The Labor Department’s consumer price index skyrocketed 9.1% in June from a year earlier, a pace not matched since 1981. And despite widespread pay raises, prices are surging faster than wages. In June, average hourly earnings, after adjusting for inflation, slid 3.6% from a year earlier, the 15th straight year-over-year drop. Americans are still spending, though more tepidly. Thursday’s report showed that consumer spending rose at a 1% annual pace from April through June, down from 1.8% in the first quarter and 2.5% in the final three months of 2021.

To the naked eye, the Mako Compressor Station outside the dusty West Texas crossroads of Lenorah appears unremarkable, similar to tens of thousands of oil and gas operations scattered throughout the oil-rich Permian Basin. What’s not visible through the chain-link fence is the plume of invisible gas, primarily methane, billowing from the gleaming white storage tanks up into the cloudless blue sky. The Mako station, owned by a subsidiary of West Texas Gas Inc., was observed releasing an estimated 870 kilograms of methane – an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere each hour. That’s the equivalent of burning seven tanker trucks full of gasoline every day. But Mako’s outsized emissions aren’t illegal, or even regulated. And it was only one of 533 methane “super emitters” detected during a 2021 aerial survey of the Permian conducted by Carbon Mapper, a partnership of university researchers and NASA. The group documented massive amounts of methane venting into the atmosphere from oil and gas operations across the Permian, a 250-mile-wide bone-dry expanse along the Texas-New Mexico border. Hundreds of those sites were seen spewing the gas over and over again. Ongoing leaks, gushers, going unfixed. “We see the same sites active from year to year. It’s not just month to month or season to season,” said Riley Duren, a research scientist at the University of Arizona who leads Carbon Mapper. Methane’s earth-warming power is some 83 times stronger over 20 years than the carbon dioxide that comes from car tailpipes and power plant smokestacks. Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency have largely failed to regulate the invisible gas. That leaves it up to oil and gas producers — in some cases the very companies who have been fighting regulations — to cut methane emissions on their own. The Associated Press took the coordinates of the 533 “super-emitting” sites identified by Carbon Mapper and cross-referenced the locations with public records to piece together the corporations most likely responsible. Just 10 companies owned at least 164 of those sites, according to an AP analysis of Carbon Mapper’s data. West Texas Gas owned 11. The methane released by these companies will be disrupting the climate for decades, contributing to more heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and floods. There’s now nearly three times as much methane in the air than there was before industrial times. The year 2021 saw the worst single increase ever. Last October, AP journalists visited more than two dozen sites flagged as persistent methane super emitters by Carbon Mapper with a FLIR infrared camera and recorded video of large plumes of hydrocarbon gas containing methane escaping from pipeline compressors, tank batteries, flare stacks and other production infrastructure. In addition to West Texas Gas’s Mako site, AP observed a large plume of gas escaping from tanks at a WTG compressor station about 15 miles away in the Sale Ranch oil field. Carbon Mapper estimated that emissions from that site averaged about 410 kilos of methane an hour. In a statement, Midland-based West Texas Gas said it routinely conducts its own overflights with gas detection equipment and within the last six months had either “repaired or upgraded” nine of the super emitting sites that AP asked about, including Mako. The company was “actively addressing” another site, though it declined to provide specifics. WTG said it inspected the last site and found no leak. Read: Mideast nations wake up to damage from climate change AP found Targa Resources, a Houston-based natural gas storage, processing and distribution company, was the closest operator to 30 sites that were emitting a combined 3,000 kilograms of methane per hour. Targa did not respond to a detailed list of questions from the AP. “Reducing air emissions from the oil and natural gas sector is a top priority for the administration and for EPA,” said Tomás Carbonell, EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for stationary sources. Methane, he added, is “helping drive impacts that communities across the country are already seeing every day, including heat waves and wildfires and sea level rise.” But proposed rules to address emissions most oil and gas sites are still under review, and if implemented will likely face legal challenges. To track emissions, the U.S. government keeps an inventory of methane released into the atmosphere. Those figures are used by policy makers and scientists to help calculate how much the planet will warm. AP found the government database often fails to account for the true rate of emissions observed in the Permian. For example, Devon Energy reported releasing methane equivalent to 42,000 metric tons of CO2 for a year of operations in the Permian Basin. AP’s analysis, using the detected emissions, shows they would emit that much in just 46 days. A spokesperson for Devon said the company is committed to reducing its methane emissions and being transparent about its progress. The EPA could not provide AP with a single example of a polluter being fined or cited for failing to report, or underreporting emissions. At an international climate summit in November, the United States and more than 100 other countries signed on to a Global Methane Pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. To meet that deadline, the American oil and gas industry would have to reduce emissions at a rate far beyond anything currently seen. The industry says it is working toward that goal. “To be able to capture more methane emissions makes sense from a business perspective,” said Frank Macchiarola, a senior vice president at the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group. "It's the product that we ultimately want to bring to market.” But climate scientists and environmentalists warn the industry’s incremental efforts are nowhere near enough to avoid dire consequences for humanity. “Methane is responsible for 25% of today’s global warming, and we can’t limit future warming to 2 degrees Celsius if we don’t drastically cut those emissions,” said Ilissa Ocko, a senior climate scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, a group that campaigns for climate action. “We have the tools to cut methane in half and the faster we do that, the better off our climate and communities will be.”

Former President Donald Trump will return to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since leaving office, delivering a policy speech before an allied think tank that has been crafting an agenda for a possible second term. Trump will address the America First Policy Institute’s two-day America First Agenda Summit as some advisers urge him to spend more time talking about his vision for the future and less time relitigating the 2020 election as he prepares to announce an expected 2024 White House campaign. “I believe it will be a very policy-focused, forward-leaning speech, very much like a State of the Union 5.0,” said Brooke Rollins, AFPI’s president. Composed of former Trump administration officials and allies, the nonprofit is widely seen as an “administration in waiting” that could quickly move to the West Wing if Trump were to run again and win. Trump’s appearance in Washington — his first trip back since Jan. 20, 2021, when President Joe Biden was sworn into office — comes as his potential 2024 rivals have been taking increasingly overt steps to challenge his status as the party’s standard-bearer. They include former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been touting his own “Freedom Agenda” in speeches that serve as an implicit contrast with Trump. Read: Jan. 6 panel deepens probe to Trump Cabinet, awaits Thomas “Some people may choose to focus on the past, but I believe conservatives must focus on the future. If we do, we won’t just win the next election, we will change the course of American history for generations,” Pence had planned to say in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on the eve of Trump’s visit. Pence’s appearance was postponed because of bad weather, but he will be delivering his own speech Tuesday morning before the Young America’s Foundation not far from the AFPI meeting. Trump has spent much of his time since leaving office fixated on the 2020 election and spreading lies about his loss to sow doubt about Biden’s victory. Indeed, even as the Jan. 6 committee was laying bare his desperate and potentially illegal attempts to remain in power and his refusal to call off a violent mob of his supporters as they tried to halt the peaceful transition of power, Trump continued to try to pressure officials to overturn Biden’s win, despite there being no legal means to decertify the past election. On Tuesday, he plans to focus on public safety. “President Trump sees a nation in decline that is driven, in part, by rising crime and communities becoming less safe under Democrat policies,” said his spokesman, Taylor Budowich. “His remarks will highlight the policy failures of Democrats, while laying out an America First vision for public safety that will surely be a defining issue during the midterms and beyond.” Beyond the summit, staff at the America First Policy Institute have been laying their own groundwork for the future, “making sure we do have the policies, personnel and process nailed down for every key agency when we do take the White House back,” Rollins said. The nonprofit developed, she said, from efforts to avoid the chaotic early days of Trump’s first term, when he arrived at the White House unprepared, with no clear plans ready to put in place. As Trump was running for reelection, Rollins, then the head of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, began to sketch out a second-term agenda with fellow administration officials, including top economic policy adviser Larry Kudlow and national security adviser Robert O’Brien. When it became clear Trump would be leaving the White House, she said, AFPI was created to continue that work ”organized around that second term agenda that we never released.” The organization, once dismissed as a landing zone for ex-Trump administration officials shut out of more lucrative jobs, has grown into a behemoth, with an operating budget of around $25 million and 150 staff, including 17 former senior White Houses officials and nine former Cabinet members. Read: Ivana Trump, first wife of former president, dies at 73 The group also has more than 20 policy centers and has tried to extend its reach beyond Washington with efforts to influence local legislatures and school boards. An “American leadership initiative,” led by the former head of the Office of Personnel Management, Michael Rigas, launched several weeks ago to identify future staff loyal to Trump and his “America First” approach who could be hired as part of a larger effort to replace large swaths of the civil service, as Axios recently reported. The group is one of several Trump-allied organizations that have continued to push his polices in his absence, including America First Legal, dedicated to fighting Biden’s agenda through the court system, the Center for Renewing America and the Conservative Partnership Institute. The summit is intended to highlight AFPI’s “America First Agenda,” centered around 10 key policy areas including the economy, health care and election security. It includes many of Trump’s signature issues, like continuing to build a wall along the southern border and a plan to “dismantle the administrative state.” In a speech Monday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose “Contract with America” has been credited with helping Republicans sweep the 1994 midterm elections, praised the effort as key to future GOP victory. “The American people want solutions,” he said.

Two people were killed and at least five others were injured after gunfire erupted Sunday at a Los Angeles park where a car show was being held. The LA Police Department said the shooting occurred around 3:50 p.m. at Peck Park in LA’s San Pedro neighborhood. The LAPD tweeted it wasn’t an active shooter situation but provided no more information. LAPD Capt. Kelly Muniz said during a news conference that the casualties were reported at the baseball diamond. Police have not identified the victims. Read:Chief: 3 dead in Indiana mall shooting; witness kills gunman “The original call came out as having multiple shooting victims on the baseball diamond at Peck Park. As we speak here, this is an ongoing, active crime scene, and we are continuing to clear the park for evidence and potentially additional victims,” Muniz said. “We don’t know exactly how many shooters we have at this point.” The LA Fire Department said the incident occurred at or near the car show and that at least three people suffered gunshot wounds and two of them were in critical condition. Seven people overall, four men and three women, were injured and taken to hospitals, according to the fire department. Police have not offered a motive. No arrests have been made. Peck Park is about 20 miles (32.19 kilometers) south of downtown Los Angeles.

The House Jan. 6 committee said Sunday it will interview more former Cabinet secretaries and is prepared to subpoena conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, who's married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, as part of its investigation of the Capitol riot and Donald Trump's role. Lawmakers said they are deepening their inquiry after a series of eight hearings in June and July culminating in a prime-time session Thursday, with plans to interview additional witnesses and reconvene in September to resume laying out their findings to the public. “We anticipate talking to additional members of the president’s Cabinet,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee's vice chair. “We anticipate talking to additional members of his campaign. Certainly, we’re very focused as well on the Secret Service.” Cheney, R-Wyo., did not identify the Trump administration officials who might come forward, but the committee has previously made clear its interest in speaking with those believed to have considered invoking a constitutional process in the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office after the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump’s supporters violently stormed the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s election. The committee has aired testimony from former Attorney General William Barr, who said he told Trump that widespread voter fraud claims were “bull——” and had “zero basis.” In last week’s hearing, the committee played testimony from then-Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, who said he urged Trump to call a Cabinet meeting to discuss an orderly transition of power. Other Cabinet members have indicated they may have important details to share. Betsy DeVos, the education secretary at the time, previously told USA Today that she raised with Vice President Mike Pence the question of whether the Cabinet should consider invoking the 25th Amendment, which would have required the vice president and the majority of the Cabinet to agree that the president could no longer fulfill his duties. Read: Capitol riot panel blames Trump for 1/6 'attempted coup' DeVos, in her resignation letter on Jan. 7, 2021, blamed Trump for inciting the mob. “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” she wrote. On the same day, Elaine Chao quit as transportation secretary. Chao, who is married to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the attack had "deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.” Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state at the time who is considering a 2024 presidential run, and Steven Mnuchin, Trump's treasury secretary, also were reported to have discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment, according to Jonathan Karl of ABC News in his book “Betrayal.” “The floodgates have opened,” said Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., regarding the next phase of its investigation. Committee members also hope to learn more about Ginni Thomas’ own effort to keep Trump in office and the potential conflicts of interest for Clarence Thomas as a result on Jan. 6 cases that have come before the Supreme Court. The committee sent a letter to Ginni Thomas last month seeking an interview and hopes she will comply, Cheney said. Thomas communicated with people in Trump’s orbit ahead of the 2021 attack and also on the day of the insurrection. “We certainly hope that she will agree to come in voluntarily,” Cheney said. “But the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not.” Cheney also said that while the committee hasn’t decided whether to make a criminal referral regarding Trump to the Justice Department, “that’s absolutely something we’re looking at.” Added Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.: “I certainly think there’s evidence of crimes and I think it goes all the way up to Donald Trump.” While a possible Trump prosecution is a matter for the Justice Department, the committee has used its hearings to try to make a case about his political viability as he mulls running in 2024. Some of the most damning testimony aired by the committee has come from Trump’s own top Republican advisers, military leaders and confidants, who admitted to a loss of confidence in his judgment and dedication to the rule of law in the days leading up to and after the Jan. 6 attack. The committee also wants to get to the bottom of missing Secret Service texts from Jan. 5-6, 2021, that could have shed further light on Trump’s actions during the insurrection, particularly after earlier testimony about his confrontation with security as he tried to join supporters at the Capitol. Lawmakers also are interested in hearing from Steve Bannon, a Trump ally who was found guilty last week on criminal contempt of Congress charges for refusing to comply with the House committee’s subpoena. Cheney spoke on CNN's “State of the Union” and “Fox News Sunday,” Kinzinger appeared on ABC's “This Week,” and Luria was on NBC's “Meet the Press."

A destructive wildfire near Yosemite National Park burned out of control through tinder-dry forest on Sunday and had grown into one of California's biggest blazes of the year, forcing thousands of residents to flee remote mountain communities. Some 2,000 firefighters battled the Oak Fire, along with aircraft and bulldozers, facing tough conditions that includes steep terrain, sweltering temperatures and low humidity, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. “It's hot out there again today," Cal Fire spokesperson Natasha Fouts said Sunday. “And the fuel moisture levels are critically low.” Crews on the ground protected homes as air tankers dropped retardant on 50-foot (15-meter) flames racing along ridgetops east of the tiny community of Jerseydale. Light winds blew embers ahead into tree branches “and because it's so dry, it's easy for the spot fires to get established and that's what fuels the growth,” Fouts said. The fire erupted Friday southwest of the park near the town of Midpines in Mariposa County. Officials described “explosive fire behavior” on Saturday as flames made runs through bone-dry vegetation caused by the worst drought in decades. By Sunday the blaze had consumed more than 22 square miles (56 square km) of forest land, with no containment, Cal Fire said. The cause was under investigation. Evacuations were in place for over 6,000 people living across a several-mile span of the sparsely populated area in the Sierra Nevada foothills, though a handful of residents defied the orders and stayed behind, said Adrienne Freeman with the U.S. Forest Service. Read:Governor declares emergency over wildfire near Yosemite “We urge people to evacuate when told,” she said. “This fire is moving very fast.” Lynda Reynolds-Brown and her husband Aubrey awaited news about the fate of their home from an evacuation center at an elementary school. They fled as ash rained down and the fire descended a hill towards their property. "It just seemed like it was above our house and coming our way really quickly,” Reynolds-Brown told KCRA-TV. Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency for Mariposa County due to the fire's effects. Flames destroyed at least 10 residential and commercial structures and damaged five others, Cal Fire said. Assessment teams were moving through mountain towns to check for additional damage, Fouts said. Numerous roads were closed, including a stretch of State Route 140 that's one of the main routes into Yosemite. California has experienced increasingly larger and deadlier wildfires in recent years as climate change has made the West much warmer and drier over the past 30 years. Scientists have said weather will continue to be more extreme and wildfires more frequent, destructive and unpredictable. Pacific Gas & Electric said on its website that more than 3,100 homes and businesses in the area had lost power as of Sunday and there was no indication when it would be restored. “PG&E is unable to access the affected equipment,” the utility said as flames roared Friday. The Oak Fire was sparked as firefighters made progress against an earlier blaze, the Washburn Fire, that burned to the edge of a grove of giant sequoias in the southernmost part of Yosemite National Park. The 7.5-square-mile (19-square-km) fire was nearly 80% contained after burning for two weeks and moving into the the Sierra National Forest.

A 9-year-old boy who was camping at an Iowa state park with his parents and 6-year-old sister survived a shooting that killed the rest of his family. The Iowa Department of Public Safety identified the victims as Tyler Schmidt, 42; his 42-year-old wife, Sarah Schmidt; and their 6-year-old daughter, Lula Schmidt, all of Cedar Falls, Iowa. Their bodies were found in their tent early Friday at the Maquoketa Caves State Park Campground, about 180 miles (290 kilometers) east of Des Moines. Authorities said the suspected gunman, 23-year-old Anthony Sherwin, was found dead Friday in a wooded area of the park with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Department of Public Safety’s division of criminal investigation, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the motive for the attack was still unknown. “We don’t know what led up to this, what precipitated it,” he said, adding that so far, “the investigation has not revealed any early interaction between the Schmidt family and him.” Adam Morehouse, Sarah Schmidt's brother, said the family had no connection to Sherwin and he believed it was a “completely random act.” Cedar Falls Mayor Rob Green, who said he is a neighbor of the Schmidts, posted on Facebook on Friday that the couple's 9-year-old son, Arlo, “survived the attack, and is safe.” The post did not say whether Arlo was in the tent or even at the campsite when the shootings happened, and the mayor told the AP he didn't have those details. Morehouse confirmed Arlo was on the family's camping trip, but said he did not know exactly where the boy was at the time of the shooting or know specifics about how it unfolded. “He is with family and he is OK, but I have not had any interaction with him,” Morehouse said Saturday. “As far as I know, he was uninjured physically.” By Saturday evening, more than $75,000 had flowed into a GoFundMe page created for Arlo. The page, organized by a cousin, Beth Shapiro, said: “Arlo is a strong boy, surrounded by family and friends who are supporting him as best we can.” The page says the fund will help Arlo now, and help fund his future education. The killings prompted the evacuation of the park and campground, including a children's summer camp. After the evacuations, Sherwin was the only person unaccounted for, Mortvedt said. He said that during the course of the investigation, authorities learned Sherwin was armed and “that of course heightened our awareness.” Iowa allows people with permits to carry firearms virtually anywhere in the state. Officials did not say if Sherwin had a permit and provided no information about the firearm used to kill the Schmidts. The Des Moines Register reported that Sherwin was from La Vista, Nebraska. La Vista Police Chief Bob Lausten told the newspaper that Sherwin lived in an apartment complex with his parents and had no history of criminal conduct. Felicia Coe, 35, of Des Moines, was at the campground Friday morning with her boyfriend and his two sons, ages 11 and 16. She said the 16-year-old went out early to go running, and she was talking with someone at the park at about 6:30 a.m. when two park rangers dressed in helmets, vests and carrying what looked like automatic rifles told them to leave the campground. Read: Parade shooting suspect bought 5 weapons despite threats More law enforcement and an ambulance showed up as Coe went to find her boyfriend's teenage son. At the time, Coe did not know what happened. But she recalls seeing a little boy standing near the paramedics. “He was in his pajamas. I distinctly remember he had one blue tennis shoe,” she said. She later saw a picture of the Schmidt family online and said she recognized the boy she saw as Arlo. “He’s got this really cute, floppy-curly, moppy, strawberry-blond hair that’s really distinguishable,” Coe said. “He was in these super cute little pajamas, like a cotton T-shirt and shorts that matched. ... He was just standing there. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t distraught. But he also wasn’t being comforted. He was just standing there by himself.” She said the campers got little information about what happened and she began piecing it together on the drive home. “It’s hard to be so grateful that it wasn’t your family, when you know that another family, is just being ripped apart — multiple families," she said. Green, the Cedar Falls mayor, said Sarah Schmidt worked at the city's Public Library, which was closed Saturday. “Like many of you just hearing the news, I’m devastated,” Green wrote on Facebook. “I knew Sarah well, and she & her family were regular walkers here in the Sartori Park neighborhood. I was working with her this week on a public library tech presentation for 7/26.” Morehouse said Tyler Schmidt's parents live in the Cedar Falls area, and Sarah Schmidt's family members are scattered around the country, but were heading to Iowa. He said Tyler and Sarah lived in Lawrence, Kansas, for a time, where Sarah worked at the University of Kansas. Tyler was an IT software engineer. At one point, he said, Sarah worked on a project about monarch butterflies, and the couple were huge Kansas Jayhawks fans. In 2018, the Schmidts moved to Cedar Falls and had been active in the community ever since, Morehouse said. He said they loved the outdoors, and just got four pairs of snowshoes for Christmas.   “The best way to describe all four of them was the quintessential Midwestern family. They gave everybody everything they possibly could. They loved family ... They enjoyed the outdoors, enjoyed the hiking — and this is just a question mark of ‘Why that campground and that campsite on that night?’"

A man has been charged with attempted assault after brandishing a sharp object and attacking U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin as the Republican candidate for New York governor delivered a speech in western New York. The incident happened Thursday as Zeldin, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul this November, was addressing a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in the town of Perinton, outside Rochester. The attacker climbed onto a low stage where the congressman spoke to a crowd of dozens, flanked by bales of hay and American flags. Zeldin said at a news conference in the Syracuse area Friday that he saw the man in his periphery on stage. “The first thing I saw was that he was wearing a hat that said he was a veteran,” he said. “And my guard couldn’t possibly be more dropped. But at the same exact time, I noticed that he had a weapon in his hand.” He said the man was saying, “You’re done,” to him. “And obviously in that point, regardless of whatever’s on your hat, this was not a normal situation and there needed to be action taken,” he said. Videos taken by people in the audience showed the man walk up to Zeldin and try to grab him, bringing a pointed object shaped like a cat’s head toward Zeldin’s neck as he reached for the congressman. Photos of the object suggested it was a keychain meant to be worn on the knuckles for self defense. People at the gathering held down the attacker and he was arrested. Among those subduing the man was Zeldin’s running mate, former New York Police Department Deputy Inspector Alison Esposito. Read: GOP candidate for NY governor Lee Zeldin attacked David Jakubonis, 43, was charged with attempted assault in the second degree, arraigned and then released, a Monroe County sheriff’s spokesperson said. It’s not clear whether Jakubonis has an attorney who can speak for him. A message seeking comment was left at a number listed for Jakubonis. Jakubonis is an Army veteran who was deployed to Iraq in 2009 as a medical laboratory technician. The congressman said his “first thought was to grab onto his wrist and just to hold it because there were so many people that I would expect there to be help. And that’s what happened.” He said he was grateful for everyone who jumped in to help. Zeldin finished his remarks after Jakubonis was subdued, saying Friday it was important “not to be intimidated.” Jacob Murphy, a spokesperson for Zeldin’s congressional office, said that Zeldin had a minor scrape from the incident. He said Zeldin had not received any specific threats recently. He also said Zeldin had private security for the Perinton event but would start having increased security. In a statement, Hochul condemned the attack and said she was “relieved to hear that Congressman Zeldin was not injured and that the suspect is in custody.” New York Republican State Committee Chairman Nick Langworthy called on Hochul to issue a security detail for Zeldin to protect him on the campaign trail. Hochul’s press secretary Avi Small referred questions about providing Zeldin with a security detail to New York state police. Zeldin, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who has represented eastern Long Island in Congress since 2015, is a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and was among the Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.   He has focused his campaign on calling for a crackdown on crime but faces an uphill battle against Hochul. He’ll need to persuade independent voters — which outnumber Republicans in the state — as well as Democrats in order to win the general election. Zeldin and fellow Republicans pointed to Jakubonis’ release by a Perinton Town Court judge as an example of the need to reform New York’s bail laws, something he’s called on Hochul to toughen. “It is terrible public policy that in the state of New York, you can try to stab a sitting member of Congress, or anyone else for that matter, and be back out on the street not even 6 hours later,” Zeldin’s campaign spokeswoman Katie Vincentz said in a statement. A 2019 bail reform law in New York eliminated pretrial incarceration for people accused of most nonviolent offenses. The law gives judges the option to set bail in nearly all cases involving violent felonies, but has exceptions for certain attempted felonies like attempted assault. Judges must also consider someone’s ability to pay bail, and weigh imposing other conditions like travel restrictions, electronic monitoring or limits on weapons possessions. Amid calls from Republicans and some Democrats to toughen the law, Hochul this year signed a measure to allow someone to be held on bail for hate crimes and additional gun offenses, and give judges more discretion in deciding bail if a person is facing multiple charges. Judges who set bail must also weigh factors like an individual’s history of using guns, whether they are accused of causing “serious harm” and if they violated an order of protection. Perinton Town Court senior clerk Betsy Wager said under the state law, “The judge had no choice but to release him on his own recognizance.”   Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on whether she’s considering more changes to the state’s bail laws.