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Hundreds of firefighters in Utah have struggled to suppress a wildfire that scorched an additional 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares) as of Saturday, as low humidity and strong winds accelerated the fire spread, according to state officials.

The Cottonwood fire erupted on Monday in the Fishlake national forest, located in central Utah. The blaze intensified overnight, growing from about 70,000 acres (28,000 hectares) to more than 92,000 acres (37,000 hectares) on Saturday morning, according to the US Forest Service. The fire is at a 0% containment level and is the largest blaze currently burning in the US, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

There have been no reported injuries or casualties. So far, the fire, whose cause remains under investigation, has left property damage at a ski resort in Beaver county and led to the closure of the national fores

Authorities expect slightly improved weather conditions on Saturday, but they warned that the afternoon may bring “extreme fire behavior” once more due to an increase in temperatures and wind speeds.

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About four million Americans have dropped out of Affordable Care Act insurance coverage this year as costs soared due to the loss of enhanced subsidies.

The figures released late Friday from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services offer the most complete look to date at what happened to enrollment after Republicans in Congress failed to extend enhanced ACA subsidies at the end of last year.

The loss of those subsidies spiked many people’s premiums by double digits; the new coverage numbers likely reflect the sticker shock Americans experienced.  

Unable to pay, they dropped their coverage.

The report from the health and human services assistant secretary for planning and evaluation said that an estimated 19.2 million people are enrolled in ACA plans as of February.

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The U.S. military is sending additional resources to Venezuela, as the death toll continues to mount and tens of thousands of people are still believed to be missing following a pair of devastating earthquakes.

U.S. South Command (Southcom) announced on Saturday that a specialized rapid resp

“The Department of War is going to have play a logistical – big logistical role here, because they have the ability to land in challenging places,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday, noting that the airport in the capital of Caracas was damaged.

“One of the runways is cracked,” he added. “And so – but the Department of War has the capability to land in situations like that, so we’ll need that.”

onse unit was on its way to Venezuela to assist the local government and aviation authorities with resuming air traffic and airport operations in affected areas.

“The Department of War is going to have play a logistical – big logistical role here, because they have the ability to land in challenging places,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday, noting that the airport in the capital of Caracas was damaged.

“One of the runways is cracked,” he added. “And so – but the Department of War has the capability to land in situations like that, so we’ll need that.”

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Those who live anywhere east of the Rocky Mountains might want to start planning now to stay safe and cool through the July 4 weekend, as the National Weather Service warns days of "significant, dangerous heat" could be ahead.

And they're not talking normal summer heat. This is triple-digit heat indices and blazing hot temperatures that could break records and linger through Independence Day and beyond.

Temperatures are going to be "well above normal across much of the Central and Eastern U.S.," said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service.

From July 3-9, weather service forecasters are seeing increasing confidence for well above-normal and possibly record-breaking summertime temperatures and elevated extreme heat risks for many areas in the Midwest and Eastern U.S. The developing pattern could be favorable for another Omega block-like pattern bringing impacts that last further into July, the forecast discussion noted.

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The U.S. military launched another round of strikes against targets in Iran on June 27 after Tehran allegedly carried out a new drone attack on a commercial oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. Central Command.

CENTCOM said the latest operation came after Iranian forces struck the Panama-flagged tanker M/T Kiku with an attack drone around 4:30 a.m. ET Saturday. The tanker was carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude oil near the Strait of Hormuz, CENTCOM said.

The military said Iran had been "given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement" following U.S. retaliatory strikes a day earlier, but instead "elected not to" after the latest attack on commercial shipping. In response, U.S. aircraft struck multiple military targets, including surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities, according to CENTCOM.

President Donald Trump said in a statement on June 27 that American aircraft had struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites. He also issued a dire warning to Iran if the Middle Eastern country continues to violate the ceasefire agreement.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz have said that troops will maintain an indefinite presence in southern Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip.

They were both speaking at a graduation for combat officers in southern Israel on Thursday.

“We dominate southern Lebanon, from the summit of the Beaufort, and we will remain as long as required in the security zone,” Netanyahu said. “We do not intend to withdraw from it.”

Katz said: “The Israeli military will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, in Syria and in Gaza without any time limit.” 

He said that Israel opposed withdrawal from Lebanon “despite all the pressures that exist and those that are yet to come”.

“There is another important message, which I hope is clearly understood in Tehran: if Iran attacks Israel because of our activities in Lebanon, or for any other reason, we will strike it with full force in a way that will clearly demonstrate the gap in power between us,” the defence minister added.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky outlined Ukraine’s core diplomatic priorities ahead of the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara, placing air defense, energy resilience, European integration and sustained pressure on Russia at the center of Kyiv’s agenda.

In his evening address, the president announced that Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko had returned to Kyiv following the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk, where the Ukrainian delegation secured 160 agreements worth more than €10 billion.

The new agreements primarily target energy infrastructure, reconstruction and the resilience of Ukraine’s regions and communities, according to Zelensky.

“This is fundamental,” the president stressed, adding that Ukraine must use the summer months to implement as many of these projects as possible.

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Defense attorneys for Tyler James Robinson, the Utah man who allegedly shot Kirk, a conservative political activist, last September, argued in a March court filing that deputy Utah county attorney Christopher Ballard had violated a pre-trial media gag order.

A Utah judge held a prosecutor in contempt on Friday for speaking to the media about the murder case against the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk, but did not grant the defense attorney’s request to bar the death penalty as punishment in the case.

Robinson’s legal team had argued in a prior filing that a report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did not prove the bullet that killed Kirk came from a firearm believed to belong to Robinson. The claims gained traction online and were regarded by some commentators as potentially exculpatory.

Afterward, Ballard gave statements to news outlets to combat what he later described as “misinformation” regarding the interpretations of ballistics testing.

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