ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Authorities are making contact with some of the most remote villages in the United States to determine the need for food and water and assess damage from a massive weekend storm that flooded communities dotting Alaska’s vast western coast. No one has been reported injured or killed during the massive storm — the remnants of a typhoon that traveled north through the Bering Strait over the weekend.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Flood waters are receding in parts of western Alaska battered by the worst storm in a half century. The storm left behind debris flung by powerful Bering Sea waves, the remnants of Typhoon Merbok, which was weakening Sunday as it moved north from the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea.

HAVANA (AP) — Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico's southwest coast on Sunday as it unleashed landslides, knocked the power grid out and ripped up asphalt from roads and flung the pieces around.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Just hours after a Montana judge blocked health officials from enforcing a state rule that would prevent transgender people from changing the gender on their birth certificate, the state said it would defy the order. District Court Judge Michael Moses chided attorneys for the state on Thursday over the rule. He said it circumvented his April order that temporarily blocked a 2021 Montana law that made it harder to change birth certificates.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana judge has turned down a request to block enforcement of the state’s abortion ban just hours after it took effect. The ruling came Thursday in a lawsuit filed by abortion clinic operators who argue that the state constitution protects access to the procedure.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — After nearly two months of being forced to boil their water before drinking it or using it to brush teeth, people Mississippi’s largest city were told Thursday that water from the tap is safe to consume — but Jackson’s water system still needs big repairs that the mayor says the cash-strapped city cannot afford on its own.

MIAMI (AP) — The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Tropical Storm Fiona is on a path to threaten the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this weekend. Fiona took shape Wednesday night as the season's sixth named storm, centered east of the Leeward Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department says three Iranian citizens have been charged in the United States with cyberattacks that targeted power companies, local governments and small businesses and nonprofits, including a Pennsylvania domestic violence shelter. The charges accuse the hacking suspects of targeting hundreds of victims in the U.S. and elsewhere, stealing data from their networks and demanding ransom payments to unlock and return the stolen information.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia’s Legislature has passed a sweeping abortion ban with few exceptions. Several Republicans, whose party holds a supermajority, say they hope the bill approved Tuesday will make it impossible for the state’s only abortion clinic to continue to offer the procedure. Under the legislation, rape and incest victims would be able to obtain abortions at up to eight weeks of pregnancy.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An independent commission is recommending that the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery be dismantled and taken down, as part of its final report to Congress on the renaming of military bases and assets that commemorate the Confederacy. Panel members on Tuesday rolled out the final list of ships, base roads, buildings and other items that they said should be renamed.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Heavy rains unleashed mudslides in a mountain area east of Los Angeles that burned two years ago, sending boulders and other debris across roads and prompting evacuation and shelter-in-place orders for thousands of residents. Firefighters went street by street in the community of Forest Falls Monday to make sure no residents were trapped.

CHICAGO (AP) — A 21-year-old sailor is being laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery more than 80 years after he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Scientific testing that started in 2015 on remains of men whose bodies were pulled from the USS Oklahoma after the attack has led to the identification of Herbert “Bert” Jacobson and more than 350 others.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana judge won’t hear arguments until next week on a lawsuit seeking to block the state’s abortion ban, leaving that new law set to take effect on Thursday. The special judge overseeing the case issued an order Monday setting a court hearing for Sept. 19, which is four days after the ban’s effective date.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Exxon Valdez that grounded on Alaska’s Bligh Reef in 1989, causing one of the nation’s worst oil spills, has died. A nephew, Sam Hazelwood, confirmed to The New York Times that Joseph Hazelwood died at age 75 in July after struggling with COVID-19 and cancer.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Jeff Bezos' rocket company has suffered its first launch failure. No one was aboard, only science experiments. The Blue Origin rocket blasted off from West Texas on Monday. Barely a minute into the flight, bright yellow flames shot out from around the single engine.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Alabama firefighters had to use a ladder truck to rescue dogs from the roof of a downtown kennel after chemical fumes from work on a floor forced an evacuation. Two workers and several animals at Dog Days of Birmingham began having what appeared to be breathing difficulties after a contractor put new sealant on a concrete floor that was being refinished.

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are remembering 9/11 with tear-choked tributes and pleas to “never forget,” 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil. Victims’ relatives and dignitaries gathered Sunday at all three places where hijacked jets crashed on Sept. 11, 2001 — the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

FORESTHILL, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters made progress against a huge Northern California wildfire that was still growing and threatening thousands of mountain homes, while crews also battled major blazes Sunday in Oregon and Washington. Cal Fire says the Mosquito Fire in foothills east of Sacramento spread to nearly 65 square miles, with 10% containment.

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Caring for 100 children sounds like something out of a nursery rhyme, but for Hilton Head Islander Karin Van Name, it’s the reality of more than three decades as a foster parent. “I said I’d stop after 100 or when I reached 100, whichever came first,” 91-year-old Van Name said.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Two American Indian tribes in South Dakota have joined forces to purchase 40 acres around the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark, the site of one of the deadliest massacres in U.S. history.

A day of terror that left four dead and three wounded in a Tennessee city this week tore a hole in the hearts of those left behind. They include the grandmother of three children who were left …

PRESTONSBURG, Ky. (AP) — David Stephens' children romped around the small patch of grass they've turned into a makeshift playground, running and laughing — seemingly without a care in the world. Their father, though, is gripped by worry about the future. And he marvels at his kids' resilience, considering the losses and hardships they've endured.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Firefighters are struggling to control raging California wildfires that have grown explosively during extreme heat and forced thousands of residents to flee mountain communities at both ends of the state. The Fairview Fire in Southern California covered about 43 square miles of Riverside County and is just 5% contained.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly two decades after his capture in Pakistan, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks is still in a legal limbo. As the 21st anniversary of the terror attacks approaches Sunday, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other men accused of 9/11-related crimes continue to sit in a U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay.

HEMET, Calif. (AP) — California firefighters are struggling to gain control of major California wildfires that have grown explosively and forced extensive evacuations amid a searing heat wave. The deadly and destructive Fairview Fire in Southern California expanded in two directions on Wednesday, covering more than 30 square miles.