Biden declares disaster for Maui

President Biden issued a major disaster declaration for Maui as evacuation centers filled and tourists fled from the island in the wake of a fast-moving wildfire. The death toll climbed to 36, and hundreds of buildings were damaged in the tourist town of Lahaina and elsewhere on the western coast.

Tad Craig, a wedding photographer who saw the wildfire on Tuesday in Lahaina, said gas tanks were exploding and smoke was blowing sideways. “It was just a total inferno — Armageddon,” he said.

Fueled by unusual conditions — among them winds from a distant hurricane — the fire ranks as one of the nation’s deadliest in decades. Flames burned with such intensity that at least a dozen people escaped into the Pacific Ocean, where they were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard. Satellite images show the scale of destruction.

The fire, which officials said had been largely contained, prompted officials to evacuate 11,000 tourists from Maui, whose economy relies on tourism. Officials have strongly discouraged people from traveling to the island, one of America’s most beloved tourist destinations, while the crisis continues.

Background: Hawaii has battled a surge of fires in recent years as wildfires have become more intense and frequent in the American West and beyond because of climate change. Grasslands that have taken over former plantations have fed the fires.

U.S. reached a deal with Iran to free Americans

The U.S. and Iran reached an agreement to release five imprisoned Americans in exchange for several jailed Iranians and the unfreezing of about $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue, according to several people familiar with the deal.

Three of the prisoners have been named: Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz, all of whom had been imprisoned on unsubstantiated charges of spying. The money will be regulated so that Tehran can spend it only for humanitarian purposes.

The deal with Iran — a bitter adversary of the U.S. — is the latest prisoner swap engineered in secret by the Biden administration in an effort to bring home Americans whom the State Department deems wrongfully detained.

The Supreme Court paused the Sackler opioid settlement

The Supreme Court agreed to consider the government’s challenge of a bankruptcy settlement involving Purdue Pharma. The move pauses a deal that would have shielded members of the wealthy Sackler family from civil opioid lawsuits in exchange for payments of up to $6 billion to thousands of plaintiffs.

The government has argued that the family behind Purdue Pharma, maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, should not be able to take advantage of legal protections meant for debtors in “financial distress.” The court’s order, which was unsigned, gave no reasons and included no public dissents. It specified that the justices would hear arguments in the case in December.

A presidential candidate in Ecuador was assassinated

Fernando Villavicencio, who had been outspoken about the link between organized crime and government officials, was assassinated yesterday in the country’s capital, just days before the start of voting.

Villavicencio, a former journalist, was shot at a political rally outside a high school after speaking to young supporters. Six suspects, all Colombian nationals, were arrested in connection with the assassination, Ecuador’s interior minister said. Ecuador, once a relatively safe nation, has been consumed by violence related to narco-trafficking in the last five years.

The fleeting magic of summer camp

Josephine Sittenfeld, a photographer and filmmaker, was a counselor at Camp Killooleetp in central Vermont. It’s where she came to understand core values, found her people and fell in love for the first time.