Nation & World Glance
Widespread evacuations, power outages near California fire
SAN FRANCISCO — About 90,000 residents were ordered to evacuate towns near a massive Northern California wildfire Saturday, and the state’s largest utility began power shutoffs for an estimated 2.35 million people due to forecasts of severe winds and extreme fire danger.
Two previous blackouts in recent weeks were carried out amid concern that gusty winds could disrupt or knock down power lines and spark devastating wildfires.
The new evacuation order encompasses a huge swath of wine country stretching from the inland community of Healdsburg west through the Russian River Valley and to Bodega Bay on the coast, Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick said. An even broader area is under a warning for residents to get ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
Some gusts this weekend might reach 75 mph (120 kph) or higher as part of a “historic” wind event, the National Weather Service said. The winds could lead to “erratic fire behavior” and send embers miles ahead of the main blaze, warned the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Pacific Gas & Electric said a new wave of blackouts started Saturday evening, affecting about 940,000 homes and businesses in 38 counties for 48 hours or longer. The city of San Francisco was not in line for a blackout; shutoffs were ordered for most of the rest of the San Francisco Bay Area, the wine country to the north and the Sierra foothills.
Ex-Trump aide wants judge to decide on impeachment testimony
WASHINGTON — An ex-White House adviser who’s supposed to testify before House impeachment investigators on Monday has asked a federal court whether he should comply with a subpoena or follow
President Donald Trump’s directive against cooperating in what the president dubs a “scam.” After getting a subpoena Friday, former deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman quickly filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court in Washington. He asked a judge to decide whether he should accede to House demands for his testimony or to assert “immunity from congressional process” as directed by Trump.
The lawsuit came as Democrats’ impeachment inquiry continued at full speed with a rare Saturday session. Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of state for Europe, took questions behind closed doors for more than eight hours about Trump’s ouster of the ambassador of
Ukraine in May and whether he had knowledge about efforts to persuade Ukraine to pursue politically motivated investigations.
Kupperman, who provided foreign policy advice to the president, was scheduled to testify in a similar session on Monday. In the lawsuit, Kupperman said he “cannot satisfy the competing demands of both the legislative and executive branches.” Without the court’s help, he said, he would have to make the decision himself — one that could “inflict grave constitutional injury” on either Congress or the presidency.
The impeachment inquiry is rooted in a July 25 phone call Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. During the call, Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to pursue investigations of Democratic political rival Joe Biden’s family and Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election that propelled Trump into the White
House.
Pope’s Amazon synod proposes married priests, female leaders
VATICAN CITY — Catholic bishops from across the Amazon called Saturday for the ordination of married men as priests to address the clergy shortage in the region, an historic proposal that would upend centuries of Roman Catholic tradition.
The majority of 180 bishops from nine Amazonian countries also called for the Vatican to reopen a debate on ordaining women as deacons, saying “it is urgent for the church in the Amazon to promote and confer ministries for men and women in an equitable manner.”
The proposals were contained in a final document approved Saturday at the end of a three-week synod on the Amazon, which Pope Francis called in 2017 to focus attention on saving the rainforest and better ministering to its indigenous people.
The Catholic Church, which contains nearly two dozen different rites, already allows married priests in Eastern Rite churches and in cases where married Anglican priests have converted. But if Francis accepts the proposal, it would mark a first for the Latin Rite church in a millennium.
Still, the proposals adopted Saturday also call for the elaboration of a new “Amazonian rite” that would reflect the unique spirituality, cultures and needs of the Amazonian faithful, who face poverty, exploitation and violence over the deforestation and illegal extractive industries that are destroying their home.