The U.S. Justice Department has charged three people in connection with what prosecutors say was a campaign to move U.S. currency from the United States to Iran on behalf of Iran’s supreme leader.  Muzzamil Zaidi, a U.S. citizen living in Qom, Iran; Asim Naqvi, a U.S. citizen living in Houston; and Pakistani national Ali Chawla, living in Qom, are charged with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.  Justice Department officials said Wednesday the defendants “have considerable operational links” to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.  “The lifeblood of these terrorist operation is cash – and the defendants played a key role in facilitating that critical component,” said Michael R. Sherwin, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.  The Justice Department alleges Zaidi, Chawla and other members of an organization called Islamic Pulse received permission from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to collect a religious tax on Khamenei’s behalf and send half the money to Yemen.  Prosecutors say after the United States imposed sanctions on Khamenei in 2019, the group continued to collect U.S. dollars in the United States and send it to Iran, “structured in a such a way as to avoid reporting requirements.”  The Justice Department said Zaidi was also charged with acting in the United States as an agent of the government of Iran without first notifying the attorney general.  Prosecutors say that after arriving in the United States in June 2020, Zaidi “has exhibited behavior that is consistent with having received training from a foreign government or foreign intelligence service.   
…

Michigan has reached a $600 million agreement to compensate Flint residents whose health was damaged by lead-tainted drinking water after the city heeded state regulators’ advice not to treat it properly, multiple news outlets reported Wednesday. Details will be released later this week, according to reports by The Detroit News, MLive.com and WXYZ-TV. The offices of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel have been negotiating for more than 18 months with attorneys for thousands of Flint residents who have filed lawsuits against the state. Ryan Jarvi, a spokesman for Nessel, declined to confirm the reports of a deal Wednesday night. “We and the other parties are bound by a federal court order to maintain the confidentiality of detailed settlement and mediation communications until we reach a certain point,” Jarvi said. “We have not yet reached the point where we can discuss a potential settlement.” The settlement is intended to resolve all legal actions against the state for its role in a disaster that made the impoverished, majority-Black city a nationwide symbol of governmental mismanagement. A state-appointed emergency manager was in charge in 2014 when Flint switched its water source from the city of Detroit to the Flint River to save money. State officials advised the city not to apply corrosion controls to the water, which was contaminated by lead from aging pipes. 
…

Thousands of Californians were told to evacuate and smoke blanketed San Francisco on Wednesday as wildfires raged, sparked by a record-breaking heat wave, high winds and over 10,000 lightning strikes in just three days.Police and firefighters raced door-to-door Wednesday morning to urge Bay Area residents to evacuate. In Vacaville, a city of about 100,000 between San Francisco and Sacramento, fire officials said four people were injured and at least 100 structures were damaged or destroyed.”What has occurred over the last 72 hours has certainly stretched the resources of this state,” said Governor Gavin Newsom at a Wednesday press conference. Newsom said that California had been hit by 10,849 lightning strikes over the past 72 hours, which ignited many of the 367 known fires across the state.LIVE NOW: Governor @GavinNewsom provides an update on the state’s response to wildfires, the West Coast heat wave and the #COVID19 pandemic. https://t.co/2NYFtsJq3i
— Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) August 19, 2020Newsom said that California had been hit by 10,849 lightning strikes over the past 72 hours, which ignited many of the 367 known fires across the state.The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, issued and updated evacuation orders for several Northern California counties including Napa, Santa Cruz and Sonoma. Orders were in effect in several other counties. The National Weather Service announced a Red Flag Warning for large swaths of Northern California, which indicates that conditions are ideal for wildfires to both start and spread.#RedFlagWarning in effect for the Central Valley from Wednesday through Thursday evening and Northeastern CA through Wednesday evening due to gusty winds and low humidity. This is #CriticalFireWeather so use caution outdoors. More tips: https://t.co/upBwccxXFOpic.twitter.com/rEA3VnheP4
— CAL FIRE (@CAL_FIRE) An air tanker drops retardant as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flat community in unincorporated Napa County, Calif., Aug. 18, 2020.Just over 347,000 acres, or 1,404 square kilometers, of land in California had burned by Wednesday. Over half a million acres of land, totaling nearly 2,300 square kilometers, have burned across the U.S. West. The most recent is the Ivory Fire, sparked Wednesday, which has burned 400 acres, or about 1.6 square kilometers. It was 0% contained by the afternoon, according to the Los Angeles Times tracker.The largest active fire is the Ohlone Fire, which started August 16. The fire, which is also 0% contained, has already burned over 97,000 acres of land, or almost 400 square kilometers.Newsom declared a statewide emergency Tuesday, making it easier to obtain federal resources.“We are deploying every resource available to keep communities safe as California battles fires across the state during these extreme weather conditions,” Newson said in a press release.  “California and its federal and local partners are working in lockstep to meet the challenge and remain vigilant in the face of continued dangerous weather conditions.”California received grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency earlier this week to help combat the fires.Cal Fire’s website is down. Follow these handles to get latest on evacs/numbers… #BREAKING#LNULightningComplex – follow @CALFIRELNU#SCULightningComplex – follow @calfireSCU#CZULightningComplex – follow @CALFIRECZU#ButteLightningComplex – follow @CALFIRE_ButteCo
— Eric Shackelford (@ABC7Shack) August 19, 2020Cal Fire’s website was intermittently unavailable Wednesday. A notice on the otherwise-empty site cited “heavy traffic” and directed users to the department’s Twitter page for updates. Local news outlets and reporters shared resources on social media.  
…

Protesters in Portland broke out the windows of a county government building, sprayed lighter fluid inside and set a fire in a demonstration that started Tuesday night and ended Wednesday morning with clashes with police, officials said.The fire at the Multnomah Building damaged the county government’s office of community involvement, where Oregon’s first gay marriage took place and where protective gear has been distributed to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, said Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury.”This is the heart of our County, where people in our community come to get married, get their passports, and celebrate their cultural traditions and diversity,” she said in a statement.Demonstrations that often turn violent have gripped Oregon’s biggest city for more than two months following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  Participants have repeatedly broken into the offices of a police union headquarters building miles and last month clashed for weeks with federal agents dispatched to protect a U.S. courthouse targeted by protesters.Portland officers late Tuesday declared a riot outside the county building after demonstrators in a crowd of about 200 started fires in dumpsters, used rocks to smash first floor windows and tossed burning material inside that set the fire that set off fire alarms and the building’s sprinkler system, police said in a statement early Wednesday.The riot declaration allows officers to use crowd control methods such as tear gas or flash bang devices. Police said in their statement that some unspecified “crowd control munitions” were used to disperse the crowd but that officers did not use tear gas.Two protesters were arrested, and one police officer suffered minor injuries in scuffles as police broke up the demonstration, the statement said. A photo distributed by police showed one window of the building spray painted with a bull’s eye and the words “Aim Here.”The fire damaged the lobby where Oregon’s first gay marriage happened in 2004, Kafoury said.She asked residents to support the community involvement office, adding that “there is grave injustice in our world and there is a violent and tragic history of oppression in our County. I am committed to transformational change.”  “In such a difficult, uncertain time, our community needs all of us to work together,” Kafoury added.Police on Tuesday also identified a suspect accused of punching and kicking a man to the ground after he crashed his pickup truck on a sidewalk near ongoing demonstrations.Authorities received Sunday night of protesters chasing a truck a few blocks from the downtown federal courthouse. The driver crashed and was then assaulted, authorities said.Authorities are trying to track down the suspect, Marquise Love, 25, police said in a statement. The victim of the assault has been released from a hospital and is recovering.A social media account apparently connected to Love has been disabled and efforts to locate him for comment were not immediately successful. 
…