National News at a Glance

Woman and Two of Her Great-Grandchildren Die in Carr Fire, Family Says

A Redding, California, woman and two great-grandchildren were the latest reported victims in a rampaging fire that has claimed the lives of two firefighters and left more than a dozen missing, officials said. As of Saturday morning the fire, known as the Carr Fire, had burned more than 80,000 acres, up from more than 40,000 on Friday. It has destroyed 500 structures and forced the evacuations of about 39,000 people, officials said Saturday. Chief Mike Hebrard of the Shasta-Trinity unit of CalFire said the fire had produced “tornadolike winds.”

Mother and 5 of Her Children Die in Motel Fire in Michigan

A 26-year-old woman and five of her children were killed in a fire early Saturday at a motel in Michigan, authorities said. The fire swept through the Cosmo Extended Stay Motel in Sodus, Michigan, about 1:45 a.m., killing the mother and her children, ages 2 through 10, the Berrien County sheriff’s office said. Police identified the woman as Kiarre Curtis. Her husband, Samuel Curtis, 36, and her 1-year-old daughter were staying in the same room but survived the fire, said Chief Deputy Robert Boyce, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office. Investigators believe the cause of the fire was accidental, the Berrien County sheriff’s office said.

In Georgia Governor’s Race, a Defining Moment for a Southern State

Georgia’s governor’s race between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams has taken on the dimensions of a defining moment, one that will determine what the state represents and how it is perceived. That voters chose these two candidates reflects how Americans are embracing politicians on the basis of culture and identity, and how Georgia’s politics are catching up with its demographic change: The nonwhite population has grown to 40 percent from 29 percent since 1990. The contest between Kemp, the two-term Republican secretary of state, and Abrams, a former Democratic leader in the state Legislature, has come to mirror the polarization of the Trump era.

‘Dioxin Lawyer’ Poised to Lead Superfund Sites

Peter Wright, the lawyer nominated to run the Superfund toxic cleanup program, spent more than a decade on one of the nation’s most extensive cleanups, one involving Dow Chemical’s sprawling headquarters in Midland, Michigan. But while he led Dow’s legal strategy there, the chemical giant was accused by regulators, and in one case a Dow engineer, of submitting disputed data, misrepresenting scientific evidence and delaying cleanup, according to internal documents, court records and interviews with people involved in the project. Wright, once described himself as “the company’s dioxin lawyer.” was nominated in March by President Donald Trump to be assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency overseeing the Superfund program.