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POLK COUNTY, N.C. – Three wildfires in western North Carolina are proving challenging for firefighters to beat because of rough terrain and debris left behind by Hurricane Helene. The Black Cove, Deep Woods and Fish Hook fires continue burning in Polk County, an area devastated by Helene almost six months ago. The Black Cove Fire, which began last Wednesday, has burned 2,076 acres and had no containment as of Sunday afternoon. Fire officials said it was started by a downed power line. Meanwhile, the Deep Woods Fire is the largest at 1,802 acres and also remains 0% contained. Officials said...

New York officials are taking precautions against the avian flu after seven cases were detected at live bird markets in New York City. The markets were ordered on Friday to shut down for about one week to combat the illness, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Friday. “The order came after seven cases of bird flu were found in poultry during routine inspections of live bird markets in the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens,” the outlet said, noting that officials said there have been no cases of the avian flu among New Yorkers. In an...

A brush fire erupted on Wednesday near Castaic Lake, just north of southern California’s Santa Clarita — a Los Angeles suburb behind the San Fernando Valley. The Hughes fire has been moving rapidly since first breaking out, advancing more than 500 acres in roughly an hour due to the massive winds and dry weather facing the area. Evacuation orders have since been called in. Video shared on social media demonstrated the fire’s growing power: According to the Santa Clarita Valley Signal, the fire broke out around 10:40 a.m., which prompted quick evacuation orders for Castaic Lake and the surrounding areas:...

Vice President Harris’s neighborhood in Los Angeles was ordered to evacuate Tuesday night as wildfires blazed through the area, her spokesperson said Wednesday. “Last night, the Vice President’s neighborhood in Los Angeles was put under an evacuation order. No one was in her home at the time,” spokesperson Ernie Apreza said on social platform X. “She and the Second Gentleman are praying for the safety of their fellow Californians, the heroic first responders, and Secret Service personnel,” Apreza added. Harris, a lifelong Californian who served as the state’s U.S. senator and attorney general, said in a statement Tuesday that she...

A woman has revealed her husband walked off, leaving her to deal with the fallout, after she accidentally ordered a cocktail that had a price tag of over two thousand dollars. Lynsey took to social media to reveal she, her husband and her sister had been staying at a five-star hotel in London for New Year’s Eve. She and her husband went down to the hotel bar for a drink, and she ordered a cocktail that featured Cristal champagne, with sprinkled gold leaf and a 30-year-old whisky. The cocktail had a price tag of £1890, which is roughly $2,356 once...

The Taliban has ordered Afghan women to wear burkas in public. The burka, which covers the wearer from head to toe and leaves only a person’s eyes exposed, became the group’s staple order on women in Afghanistan during its first reign of terror, between 1996 and 2001. The decision to re-introduce the garment serves as a chilling echo of the drastic restrictions Afghan women are once again facing under the Taliban’s control. If women have no important work outside the home, they should stay at home, the group also declared. Refusal to comply with the order can result in a...

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The 2017 assessment that the President says he now agrees with, that was done while you and then NCI Director John Brennan were still in office. So, how can we reconcile the President attacking you, but apparently after a very long time finally, allegedly saying — or saying he allegedly agrees with the product of the intelligence community that you, yourself oversaw?JAMES CLAPPER: Yes, well, this is — yes, as we’ve come to know the President, he is not a stalwart for a consistency or coherence. So it’s very hard to explain that. One point...

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters say Iraq's central government has ordered them to surrender key military positions in the disputed city of Kirkuk within hours. They were given a deadline of 02:00 on Sunday (23:00 GMT on Saturday) to quit military facilities and oil fields. Brief clashes also erupted between Kurdish forces and (Iranian) Shia militia backing the Iraqi government.

All military branches required to 'address the impacts of climate change' A new directive issued by Pentagon leaders mandates that the agency work to "assess and manage risks associated with the impacts of climate change," according to a copy of the Jan. 14 directive issued by Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work. As the Obama administration focuses on a larger effort to push its climate change agenda, the Pentagon will now "address the impacts of climate change." This includes engaging in "deliberate preparation, close cooperation, and coordinated planning" to "improve climate preparedness and resilience," according to the directive. The partnership...

Protesters and Looters Burn Business District to the Ground— And the National Guard was nowhere in sight. Now we know why… And top state Democratic leaders all knew about this. Governor Jay Nixon (D-MO) ordered the National Guard out of Ferguson before the verdict was announced. And….. TOP MISSOURI DEMOCRATIC LEADERS including Claire McCaskill, Lacy Clay, Chris Koster, Mayor Francis Slay and St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley all knew about this order.

(CNSNews.com) - Seventy-four percent of the U.S. military personnel who have given their lives serving in the Afghan War died after Feb. 17, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced his first increase in the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan, according to CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. casualties in the war. In the more than twelve years that have passed since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan with the aim of removing al Qaeda from its sanctuary there, 2,162 U.S. service personnel have given their lives in and around Afghanistan in support of U.S. military activities in that country. 1,593 of...

President Obama ordered the weekend raids that captured a top al Qaeda operative in Libya and failed to capture a senior leader of the al-Shabab terrorist network in Somalia, the White House said Monday. Presidential press secretary Jay Carney said the Libya raid, in which U.S. agents seized Abu Anas al-Libi, were carried out under authorization granted by Congress in 2001. It was a “rendition” of the kind that Mr. Obama railed against when he was a candidate for president. “This operation was made possible by the superb work and coordination across our national security agencies and the intelligence

The Pentagon is ordering most of its approximately 400,000 furloughed civilian employees back to work. The decision by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is based on a Pentagon legal interpretation of a law called the Pay Our Military Act. That measure was passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama shortly before the partial government shutdown began Tuesday. The law ensured that members of the military, who have remained at work throughout the shutdown, would be paid on time. It also left room for the Pentagon to keep on the job those civilians who provide support to the military.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered additional security for the U.S. mission in Benghaziahead of the terrorist attack but the orders were never carried out, according to “legal counsel” to Clinton who spoke to best-selling author Ed Klein. Those same sources also say former President Bill Clinton has been “urging” his wife to release official State Department documents that prove she called for additional security at the compound in Libya, which would almost certainly result in President Obama losing the election.

WASHINGTON — President Obama ordered his advisers last August to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world, which concluded that without sweeping political changes, countries from Bahrain to Yemen were ripe for popular revolt, administration officials said Wednesday. Mr. Obama’s order, known as a Presidential Study Directive, identified likely flashpoints, most notably Egypt, and solicited proposals for how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States, these officials said.

(CNN) -- Chechen rebel leader Dokku Umarov claimed that he personally gave orders to attack the Moscow subway this week, according to a Chechen rebel Web site. Kavkaz Center, a Web site that regularly carries messages from the rebels, released a video in which Umarov said he was behind the Monday attacks. The attacks were revenge for what Umarov called a "massacre conducted by the Russian occupants against the poorest residents of Chechnya and Ingushetia," the Web site says. According to the site, the video was taped the same day as the attacks.

TIJUANA – Though stripped of their weapons, the 2,300 members of the local police force were ordered back to work yesterday, and returned to answering calls for help across this sprawling city with assistance from state and federal agencies. For now, the unarmed municipal officers are relying on their armed counterparts to respond to risky situations, according to the city's public safety director, Luis Javier Algorri Franco. But across Tijuana, officers were investigating accidents, directing traffic and responding to a variety of nonviolent situations. President Felipe Calderón's administration ordered the disarming of the entire police force Thursday as part of...

BAGHDAD — Coalition forces captured and detained the driver of Abu al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, during a raid Sept. 28 in here. In other developments, the Ministry of Interior issued a no-notice recall of an Iraqi police brigade, which will be pulled out of service and given corrective retraining. “Based on information from a recently detained al-Qaida in Iraq member, coalition forces on September 28th detained a former driver and personal assistant of Abu al-Masri along with 31 others during a series of raids that were conducted in the Baghdad area specifically targeting al-Qaida in Iraq targets,”...

Banned: Police ordered to stop calling young tearaways 'yobs' By Ben Leapman, Home Affairs Correspondent (Filed: 01/10/2006) They are the menacing youths who hang about in gangs, causing trouble. For decades they have been known as "yobs". It has been rare for anybody to have a good word to say about them. But now, it seems, police officers are going to have to find a more "polite" way to describe the nation's troublemakers, because Scotland Yard has banned its officers from using the word "yob", for fear that it might alienate young people. The edict has the backing of Sir...

Police in Tehran ordered to arrest women in 'un-Islamic' dress · Taxi drivers responsible for clothes of passengers· Purge allied with effort to cut viewing of western TV Robert Tait in Tehran Thursday April 20, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Iran's Islamic authorities are preparing a crackdown on women flouting the stringent dress code in the clearest sign yet of social and political repression under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From today police in Tehran will be under orders to arrest women failing to conform to the regime's definition of Islamic morals by wearing loose-fitting hijab, or headscarves, tight jackets and shortened trousers...