Nation & World Watch
vWashington: Senate clears Coats for intel chief
The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s choice for national intelligence director.
Senators voted 85-12 Wednesday to approve the nomination of former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, making him the fifth person to hold the post created after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Coats replaces James Clapper, who retired at the end of the Obama administration.
Coats will oversee 16 other intelligence agencies that have been harshly criticized at times by Trump for past failures and their assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the election to help him win.
vBismarck, N.D.: Judge won’t stop oil from flowing
A judge refused to head off the imminent flow of oil in the disputed Dakota Access pipeline, likely clearing the way for operations to begin next week.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., denied a request by the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes to stop oil from flowing while the tribes appeal his decision last week allowing pipeline construction to finish.
“The critical factor here is Cheyenne River’s lack of likelihood of success on the merits … plaintiff does not have a strong case on appeal,” Boasberg said in his ruling Tuesday.
Cheyenne River attorney Nicole Ducheneaux did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
vWashington: Plea deal made in pizzeria shooting
A man who police say fired an assault weapon inside a Washington pizza shop as he sought to investigate phony rumors of child sex trafficking has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
At a status hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, lawyers said they have reached a plea deal in principle for 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, North Carolina.
Welch would face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of interstate transportation of a firearm, assault with a dangerous weapon and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.
vSyria: Suicide bombers kill dozens in capital
Suicide bombers hit the main judicial building and a restaurant Wednesday in Damascus, killing at least 30 people and spreading fear across Syria’s capital as the country’s civil war entered its seventh year.
The attacks bore the hallmarks of Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate and reflect a renewed effort by the extremist group to use insurgent tactics against President Bashar Assad’s forces in a bid to recover lost momentum.
vNetherlands: Anti-Islam candidate losing in vote
Dutch voters rejected an anti-Islam candidate in national elections Wednesday, blunting a populist surge spreading through Europe ahead of key votes in France and Germany, according to exit polls.
Incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy was in the lead. Geert Wilders, an anti-Islam firebrand who wants to ban the Quran, close all the nation’s mosques and take the Netherlands out of the European Union, was second.
Official results won’t be published before March 21, and because of the Netherlands’ fragmented political system it could take days or weeks for parties to agree on the makeup of a new government.
Turnout was high and research firm Ipsos projected it could hit 80 percent of registered voters.