Nation & World Watch
vWashington: Obama sets one-year clemency record
President Barack Obama granted 98 more commutations to federal inmates Thursday, bringing the total for this year to 688 — the most commutations ever granted by a president in a single year.
In all, through his clemency initiative, Obama has now shortened the sentences of 872 inmates, more than any president in nearly a century.
Unlike a full pardon, which represents a full legal forgiveness for a crime, a commutation only shortens the sentence while leaving other consequences — like court-ordered supervision and restrictions on firearms ownership — intact.
vLos Angeles: Man held in destruction of Trump’s star
Los Angeles police arrested a man suspected of using a sledgehammer to destroy Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, officials said Thursday.
Jamie Otis was arrested early Thursday on suspicion of felony vandalism, Officer Andrew Chambers said. It wasn’t immediately known whether he has an attorney.
Otis told the website Deadline Hollywood after Wednesday’s predawn attack that he originally intended to remove the star. He said he wanted to auction it off to raise money for the 11 women accusing Trump of groping them. Trump has denied the groping allegations.
vIraq: Troops find bomb factory on road to Mosul
Iraqi special forces east of Mosul probed a network of underground tunnels and uncovered a bomb-making facility Thursday in a village recently retaken from the Islamic State as their allies battled the militants in a push toward the city from the south.
Special forces commanders said that the operation was proceeding as planned but that they were waiting for forces in the south to advance farther before resuming their push toward the country’s second-largest city, which fell to IS in 2014.
“The operation has not been stopped and is proceeding as planned,” special forces Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil said.
Special forces found a tire shop that had been converted into a factory for making roadside bombs and attaching armor to vehicles.
90 migrants die after boat falls apart
The Libyan navy said Thursday that at least 90 migrants are believed to have perished when their rickety boat started to fall apart in the Mediterranean Sea, after leaving the Libyan coast.
The boat, which was made of rubber, tore and began filling with water about 26 miles off the Libyan coast, an area considered to be international waters, said navy spokesman Ayoub Gassim.
The Libyan coast guard rescued 29 survivors, who recounted that there were 129 of them on the boat, mostly African nationals, Gassim said.
vJerusalem: Layers of Jesus’ tomb site uncovered
In the innermost chamber of the site said to be the tomb of Jesus, a restoration team has peeled away a marble layer for the first time in centuries in an effort to reach what it believes is the original rock surface where Jesus’ body was laid.
Many historians have long believed that the original cave, identified a few centuries after Jesus’ death as his tomb, was obliterated ages ago.
But an archaeologist accompanying the restoration team said ground-penetrating radar determined that cave walls are standing behind the marbled panels of the chamber at the center of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
“What was found,” said National Geographic archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert, “is astonishing.”