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    Map: Tracking Tropical Storm Hector

    Hector was a tropical storm in the North Pacific Ocean Sunday evening Pacific time, the National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory. The tropical storm had sustained wind speeds of 45 miles per hour.  All times on the map are Pacific time. By The New York Times Hector is the eighth named storm to […] More

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    Latino Civil Rights Group Demands Inquiry Into Texas Voter Fraud Raids

    A Latino civil rights group is asking the Department of Justice to open an investigation into a series of raids conducted on Latino voting activists and political operatives as part of sprawling voter fraud inquiry by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton.The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organizations, said that many of those targeted were Democratic leaders and election volunteers, and that some were older residents. Gabriel Rosales, the director of the group’s Texas chapter, said that officers conducting the raids took cellphones, computers and documents. He called the raids “alarming” and said they were an effort to suppress Latino voters.In a statement last week, Mr. Paxton, a Republican, described the raids, carried out in counties near San Antonio and South Texas, as part of an “ongoing election integrity investigation” that began two years ago to look into allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting. His office has said that it will not comment on the investigation because it is still underway.That investigation is part of a unit, the election integrity unit, which was created as Republican-led states sought to crack down on supposed voter crime after former President Donald J. Trump began making false claims of fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. Experts have found that voter fraud remains rare.For 35 years, Ms. Martinez has been a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens, instructing Latino residents stay engaged in politics.Christopher Lee for The New York Times“I’ve been involved in politics all of my life,” Ms. Martinez said.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    On Hawaii’s Big Island, Hurricane Hone Brings Heavy Rain but No Major Damage

    More than 20,000 customers were without power by Sunday afternoon, but neither the winds nor the flooding from the storm were dramatic.Hurricane Hone passed within 60 miles of Hawaii’s Big Island early Sunday, bringing heavy rain, knocking out power to thousands of customers and snapping native ohia trees like twigs.More than 20,000 customers were without electricity on Sunday afternoon on the island, which has a population of about 206,000. But Mitch Roth, the mayor of Hawaii County, which covers the Big Island, said there were no reports of injuries or major damage.Kazuo Todd, the fire chief for Hawaii County, said that nearly 18 inches of rain had fallen around the volcanoes in the southern part the island. But so far, neither the winds nor the flooding had been dramatic.“We do live on an island in the Pacific where the water can drain off into the ocean relatively quickly,” Chief Todd said.Forecasters predicted that Hone, which was a Category 1 storm as it was spinning westward below the islands on Sunday, could still bring up to 20 inches of rain to some areas. As the storm moves, it will slow down and push moisture over all the islands, increasing the potential for heavy rainfall statewide and the threat of flash flooding in some areas.Floodwaters flow through a soccer complex in Hilo, Hawaii, as a result of heavy rains.Bruce Omori for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Colorado Republicans Vote Out Party Chair Following Anti-Gay Posts

    State Republicans accused Dave Williams, who was ousted in a landslide vote, of dividing the party with “hateful narratives,” most recently against the L.G.B.T.Q. community.Colorado Republicans have voted to remove their party’s chairman amid mounting internal criticism of his leadership, including over recent posts that attacked the L.G.B.T.Q. community and accusations that he had fueled divisions within the party.Dave Williams, a hard-line state representative who was elected to helm the Colorado Republican Party last year, was ousted on Saturday, two months after dozens of state Republican Party members signed a petition to hold the vote. Party members selected Eli Bremer, a former chairman of the party in El Paso County in Colorado, to serve out Mr. Williams’s term.According to Michael J. Allen, a Republican district attorney in Colorado Springs, about 88 percent of the 182 or so eligible members voted for the motion at the Saturday meeting to remove Mr. Williams.“There has been an open revolt to his leadership of the party across the state,” Mr. Allen said in an interview. “It has been an accumulation of things at the expense of party unity and real electoral progress.”Mr. Allen, who prosecuted a 2022 mass shooting at an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in Colorado Springs, said he was particularly sensitive about what he criticized as Mr. Williams’s “hate-fueled” posts and emails that vilified the L.G.B.T.Q. lifestyle, which included a call to burn all Pride flags. In an email Sunday night, Mr. Williams denounced the meeting, which was held at a church in the municipality of Brighton, near Denver, as a “sham,” noting that it was “illegitimate” based on procedural grounds.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Iceland Ice Wall Collapse: 1 Tourist Is Dead and 2 Are Trapped

    The tourists were part of a group exploring a glacier in southeastern Iceland when an ice canyon wall collapsed. A fourth tourist was rescued, officials said.One person has died, two people remain trapped and one person was injured after an ice canyon wall collapsed Sunday during a group tour of a glacier in southeastern Iceland, the authorities said.Emergency responders received a call at about 3 p.m. local time that a group of about 25 tourists with a tour guide were exploring ice caves and canyons on the glacier, Breidamerkurjokull, when the side of an ice canyon gave way, said Jón Þór Víglundsson, a spokesman for ICE-SAR, a volunteer search-and-rescue association.The glacier is part of Vatnajökull National Park, one of Europe’s largest, spread across nearly 5,460 square miles.Four people were hit by the falling ice, Lögreglan á Suðurlandi, the local police force, said on Facebook. Two of them were rescued, the police said.One victim was pronounced dead at the scene, and the other was airlifted to Landspitalinn, the National University Hospital of Iceland, and is in stable condition, the agency said on Facebook late Sunday evening.Two people remain trapped, the agency said, and their conditions were unclear. A search-and-rescue effort that was underway to find the missing tourists was suspended late on Sunday, the authorities said.“Conditions during the search are difficult and darkness is now upon us,” the agency said, adding that it was dangerous to continue the search through the night. The search will resume in the morning, the police said.Others in the group remained uninjured, according to the police.It was unclear on Sunday evening where the tourists were from, what tour company organized the expedition or how many guides were on the trip.At least 150 people are involved in the search-and-rescue efforts, Mr. Víglundsson said. Crews have a “good feeling” on where the two trapped tourists might be, he said, but the operation is complicated.“Although we think we know the location of the two missing, it is hard to say what amount of ice is between them and the rescuers,” Mr. Víglundsson said. “It is a difficult situation.”Because of the precarious location on the glacier, teams cannot use heavy equipment and are instead using hacks, chain saws and ice picks to move the ice by hand to “clear a path” forward, Mr. Víglundsson said.Crews are working in teams of 12 and in shifts, he said.According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Breidamerkurjokull is an outlet glacier that extends from Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest glacier, into the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon.Breidamerkurjokull is famous for its ice caves. The best time to visit is in winter, according to Adventures.is, an Icelandic tour operator.Vísir reported that tourism companies that have signed a contract with the national park are authorized to organize ice cave trips and glacier walks year-round, and that the park “trusts companies to assess the conditions.”Amanda Holpuch More

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    Spark Bird

    On This Week’s Episode:Stories about birds — the hearts they sway, the havoc they wreak, the lives they change.ADD TK IMAGE HERE SMALLNew York Times Audio is home to the “This American Life” archive. Download the app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. More

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    NYT Crossword Answers for Aug. 26, 2024

    Refrain from making assumptions about Zachary David Levy’s puzzle.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — Zachary David Levy knows his audience. I say this because Mr. Levy, who constructed today’s puzzle, opted to use a Scrabble reference to reveal his theme. While I hesitate to paint solvers of the New York Time Crossword with a wide brush, I’m willing to bet this meant that many of you figured it out without missing a beat (or stroke, to continue the metaphor).My assumption is biased by my own love of Scrabble — I recently discovered that I owned two versions and had trouble convincing myself that I needed only one — so if your wordy board game affinities lie elsewhere, feel free to correct me! The only time that I mind being wrong is when it rains after I’ve left the house without an umbrella.Today’s ThemeThe [Coveted Scrabble space] at 58-Across is a TRIPLE-WORD SCORE. We’re told the entry also describes [the sheet music for 16-, 21-, 34- or 51-Across]. That’s because each of the themed entries is a song title consisting of three identical words. The [ABBA hit of 1979] (16A), for example, is “GIMME! GIMME! GIMME!” The [’NSync hit of 2000] (21A) was “BYE BYE BYE.” Since sheet music is also called a score, this gives us our TRIPLE-WORD SCORE.Solve the two remaining theme entries on your own, or click to reveal them below.34A. [Mötley Crüe hit of 1987]GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS51A. [Beach Boys hit of 1964]FUN, FUN, FUN We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    In a Region on Edge, Israel and Hezbollah Launch Major Attacks on Each Other

    The escalating strikes across the Israel-Lebanon border fueled fears of a bigger conflagration, but both sides signaled that they were de-escalating, for now.Amid fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, the two sides on Sunday mounted the biggest round of cross-border strikes since the war in Gaza began, with Israel bombing dozens of sites in a pre-emptive attack, and Hezbollah launching hundreds of rockets and drones.Within hours, both sides appeared to de-escalate, at least temporarily, but signaled that the violence and dangerous tensions could continue. Hezbollah said its operation, vengeance for the Israeli assassination of a senior commander, had “finished for the day,” but left open the possibility of further action. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that “what happened today is not the final word.”For weeks, Israelis have waited in trepidation for a major attack promised by Hezbollah in retaliation for the airstrike last month in a suburb of Beirut that killed one of its leaders, Fuad Shukr. Iran, which backs both Hezbollah and Hamas, has also vowed retribution for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader, on a visit to Tehran, hours after Mr. Shukr was killed, though it appears to have put that plan on hold.After the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah began firing frequently on Israel, prompting widespread Israeli bombardment. Repeated strikes, counter-strikes and threats have forced more than 160,000 people to evacuate on both sides of the border, stoking fears that the conflict would ignite full-scale regional war pitting Israel not only against Hezbollah — a more potent force than Hamas — but also its patron Iran.Before dawn on Sunday, Israel’s military said it used about 100 warplanes to strike more than 40 Hezbollah launch sites in Lebanon, saying it had acted to prevent a major attack. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said at least three people had been killed and two others hurt, and Israel said a soldier was killed and two others wounded during the Hezbollah barrage.The Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a televised address in Beirut, on Sunday.Bilal Hussein/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More