U.S. MOVES TWO ISLAMIC STATE MEMBERS FROM SYRIA

WASHINGTON» Two British militants believed to be part of an Islamic State group that beheaded hostages and was known as “The Beatles” have been moved out of a detention center in Syria and are in American custody, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

President Donald Trump said earlier Wednesday that the U.S. has moved some Islamic State prisoners amid fears some could escape custody as Turkey invades northeast Syria.

The two men, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, along with other British jihadis, allegedly belonged to the Islamic State cell nicknamed “The Beatles” because of their English accents.

In 2014 and 2015, the militants held more than 20 Western hostages in Syria and tortured many of them.

Two dead in attack targeting German synagogue on Yom Kippur.

GERMANY» A heavily HALLE, armed assailant ranting about Jews tried to force his way into a synagogue in Germany on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, then shot two people to death nearby. Video of the attack was shown live Wednesday on a popular gaming site.

The attacker shot at the door of the synagogue but did not get in as 70 to 80 people inside were observing the holy day.

The gunman shouted that Jews were “the root” of “problems” such as feminism and “mass immigration,” according to a group that tracks online extremism.

It said a 36-minute video posted online featured the assailant, who spoke English and German, denying the Holocaust before he shot a woman in the street after failing to enter the synagogue.

Measles outbreak kills more than 4,000 in Congo this year.

More than 4,000 people have died in Congo this year in the world’s largest measles outbreak, the United Nations children’s agency said Wednesday.

The Central African nation is also battling an Ebola outbreak that has killed about half that number since August 2018.

Since January, more than 200,000 cases of measles have been reported across Congo.

U.N. report details dozens of civilian deaths in airstrikes against Taliban drug labs.

» U.S. airstrikes in May on KABUL suspected Taliban drug facilities killed 30 civilians, the United Nations said Wednesday in a detailed report on the incident. The U.S. military disputed the claims, arguing that all those killed in the strikes were combatants.

The strikes targeted drug labs run by the Taliban that produce methamphetamine. The U.S. military said the workers in those labs are legitimate targets because the “personnel in the labs were members of the Taliban,” according to a statement released by the media office of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan “disputes the findings, legal analysis, and methodology” of the U.N. report, according to the statement, and questions “their reliance on sources with conflicted motives or limited knowledge … and their narrow definition of legally targetable combatants.”

Bill Gates highlights novel HIV drug in $700 million disease pledge.

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates committed $700 million to battle diseases that kill millions of people a year, saying experimental technologies such as a matchstick-sized implant to prevent HIV could become new weapons in the global effort.

The implant, under development by Merck & Co. and inserted just under the skin of a patient’s arm, is among potential breakthroughs Gates is set to highlight in a speech in France Thursday. Others include a tuberculosis vaccine GlaxoSmithKline is developing.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will provide the money to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria over three years.