Nation & World Briefs U.S. TO SHIP WEAPONS TO UKRAINE
WASHINGTON» The Trump administration has approved a plan to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Friday, in a long-awaited move that deepens America’s involvement in the military conflict and may further strain relations with Russia.
The new arms include American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles that Ukraine has long sought to boost its defenses against Russian-backed separatists armed with tanks that have rolled through eastern Ukraine during violence that has killed more than 10,000 since 2014. Previously, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with support equipment and training, and has let private companies sell some small arms like rifles.
The officials describing the plan weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly and demanded anonymity.
The move is likely to become another sore point between Washington and Moscow, as President Donald Trump contends with ongoing questions about whether he’s too hesitant to confront the Kremlin. Ukraine accuses Russia of sending the tanks, and the U.S. says Moscow is arming, training and fighting alongside the separatists.
FBI: Ex-Marine may have planned terror attack.
The FBI said Friday that it found a martyrdom letter and several guns in the home of a former Marine who may have been planning a Christmas Day attack on a popular San Francisco tourist destination.
Everitt Aaron Jameson, 26, a Modesto tow-truck driver, was charged Friday with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Jameson told an undercover agent he believed to be associated with senior leadership of the Islamic State group that he wanted to conduct a violent attack on Pier 39 in San Francisco because it was heavily crowded, according to an FBI affidavit.
Last residents to leave shrinking island.
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Louisiana officials have decided to relocate the remaining residents of a shrinking island to a sugar cane farm.
Dozens of Isle de Jean Charles residents are to be relocated to the farm in Terrebonne Parish, about 40 miles to the northwest.
The move is being funded with a first-of-its-kind $48 million federal grant — awarded in 2016 — to relocate communities fleeing climate change. Isle de Jean Charles is home to members of the BiloxiChitimacha-Choctaw tribe.
Trains collide north of Vienna.
BERLIN» Two passenger trains collided near a station north of Austria’s capital Friday, injuring several people, authorities said.
The two regional trains collided near the station in Kritzendorf, about 11 miles north of Vienna, a little before 6 p.m. Two cars turned over, and a third was leaning to one side.
Eight eight people were slightly hurt and another four more seriously injured.
Accidental bird deaths won’t be prosecuted.
The Trump administration, reversing an Obama-era policy, said it won’t prosecute oil drillers, wind-farm developers and others who accidentally kill migratory birds.
The Interior Department said accidental deaths of those birds will no longer be considered a violation of a federal law meant to protect them, whether they are struck by a spinning wind turbine, vaporized by a solar array or sink in a drilling waste pond.
The change is a victory for energy companies and developers that worried about liability under the Obama administration’s view of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes it illegal to “pursue, hunt, take, capture” or kill any migratory bird except with a valid permit. Under that century-old law, misdemeanors can be punished by as much as six months in prison and fines of up to $15,000.
Sessions to probe Bundy case.
VEGAS» A mistrial LAS in the federal prosecution of a family of ranchers who led an armed standoff against government agents has prompted Attorney General Jeff Sessions to launch an investigation into the case.
It’s also renewing calls from defense lawyers for a broad review of U.S. attorneys in Las Vegas. Big cases have collapsed in the last 15 years over federal prosecutors’ failure to share evidence with defendants.
A Justice Department spokesman declined Friday to go beyond Thursday’s announcement.
It said Sessions “takes this issue very seriously and has personally directed” a review of the case against Cliven Bundy and others.
A judge declared a mistrial this week in the case, saying prosecutors willfully failed to share evidence that could’ve helped defense attorneys.
Wildfire now California’s largest.
ANGELES» A LOS
California wildfire that has killed two people and seared its way through cities, towns and wilderness northwest of Los Angeles became the largest blaze ever officially recorded in California on Friday, authorities said.
The Thomas fire took only 2 ½ weeks to burn its way into history books as unrelenting winds and parched weather turned everything in its path to tinder — including more than 700 homes.
The fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties had scorched 273,400 acres, or about 427 square miles of coastal foothills and national forest.