UNDERCOVER POLICE OFFICER SHOT IN TEXAS

A gun battle between police and group of robbery suspects outside a Fort Worth bar early Friday left one suspect dead and an undercover officer fighting for his life, authorities said.

The undercover officer, Garrett Hull, was in critical condition at a hospital, Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald said at a news conference. The suspect who was killed, Dacion Steptoe, was the one who shot Hull after Steptoe and two accomplices left a bar they had just robbed, the chief said.

The two other suspects were arrested, and none of the 10 people who were in the bar were hurt.

Statue that some call racist is removed.

CO» A 19thcentury F RANCI S statue near San Francisco’s City Hall that some said is racist and demeaning to indigenous people was removed early Friday.

A group of American Indians chanted, beat drums and burned sage as the workers used a crane to take down the “Early Days” statue depicting an American Indian at the feet of a Spanish cowboy and a Catholic missionary. It was part of a group of bronze statues near City Hall that depict the founding of California.

American Indian activists tried to have the statue removed for decades. They renewed efforts last year after clashes broke out across the U.S. over Confederate monuments.

Drug kingpin busted in massive smuggling operation.

LO SA NGELE S

» A Colombian drug kingpin who participated in a violent ring that used planes, speedboats and submarines to smuggle hundreds of millions of dollars in cocaine faced federal trafficking charges Friday in a Los Angeles courtroom, prosecutors said.

Victor Hugo CuellarSilva is among nearly four dozen defendants charged in a vast conspiracy to ship tons of cocaine from South America through Mexico to the U.S.

U.S. calls for meeting on North Korea sanctions.

» The UnitUNI T EDN ATION S ed States has called an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council for Monday in response to what it says are efforts by some countries “to undermine and obstruct” sanctions against North Korea.

The U.S. Mission announced Friday night that the meeting will “discuss the implementation and enforcement of U.N. sanctions on North Korea.”

The mission didn’t name any countries, but U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley accused Russia on Thursday of pressuring an independent panel of U.N. experts to alter a report on North Korea sanctions that included alleged violations “implicating Russian actors.”

» In cities and towns across Syria’s last oppositionheld province, Idlib, residents poured into the streets Friday to demonstrate against President Bashar Assad’s government in defiance of an expected offensive to retake the territory.

In the provincial capital, Idlib city, and in towns including Kafranbel, Dana, Azaz, Maaret alNuman and alBab, demonstrators filled the streets after noon prayers and chanted against Assad, raising the tricolor green, white and black flag that has become the banner of Syria’s 2011 uprising, activists said.