Month: October 2019

By Tom Perry and Rodi Said BEIRUT/QAMISHLI, Syria, (Reuters) – The Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been holding negotiations with Russian participation, a Syrian Kurdish politician said on Sunday, expressing hope for a deal that would halt a Turkish attack. Ahmed Suleiman, a senior member of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive…

The Trump administration announced on October 6 that it was withdrawing several dozen U.S. special forces operators in northern Syria who had been sent there to shield local Kurdish forces from Turkish attack.  Within hours, Turkey—which has long battled Kurdish PKK insurgents on its own soil—began ground and air attacks on the Syrian Kurdish YPG/SDF…

Tall Tamr (Syria) (AFP) – The Syrian regime sent troops towards the Turkish border on Monday to contain Ankara’s deadly offensive against the Kurds, stepping in for US forces due to begin a controversial withdrawal. Outgunned and without US protection, the autonomous Kurds in northeastern Syria had few other options to stop the rapid advance…

By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Firefighters have tightened their grip on a deadly Los Angeles wildfire burning with subdued fury on Sunday after extremely dry desert winds that had stoked the flames gave way to moister, gentler breezes blowing in from the Pacific. The so-called Saddleridge fire, which erupted Thursday night and raced…

Reuters A climate-change advisory group, which helps the UK government shape policy, has called for a ban on all frequent flyer reward programs to discourage people from traveling by air so much. The Committee on Climate Change said in a report last week that just 15% of the entire British population take 70% of all…

A married prison officer who had sex with an inmate in a cleaning cupboard during an 18-month affair has been jailed for a year. Rachel Welburn started a relationship with Daniel Crompton after she became his designated personal officer at Frankland Prison in Durham. Crompton was serving life for murdering an 87-year-old war veteran in 2014 in…

The son of a Texas sheriff who used a White House press conference to describe immigrant offenders as “drunks” likely to repeatedly break the law has been arrested for public intoxication. Sergei Waybourn, 24, faces a count of indecent exposure as well as public drunkenness just days after his father, Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn,…

Former US national security expert on Russia expected for deposition originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Congress is set to continue closed-door depositions this week regarding the growing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, and now Fiona Hill, a former top national security adviser on Russia who left the administration just before the president’s July phone call…

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Sunday denounced President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this month to publicly urge China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a front-runner in the Democratic presidential primary race. Asked during an interview Sunday with CBS’ “Face The Nation” whether he believes it’s appropriate for Trump to ask China to open…

By Jose Torres and Jacob Garcia HUEHUETAN, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico’s military police on Saturday halted and turned back a caravan of up to 2,000 migrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Central America, hours after they embarked toward the United States, according to Reuters witnesses. The migrants had departed before dawn from Tapachula in the…