NATION/WORLD
White House divided on Afghan war plan
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump faces a stalemate in Afghanistan, not only on the battlefield, but also inside the White House over how to end America’s longest war.
The Trump administration has delayed a decision on a troop increase for Afghanistan sought by the Pentagon, as White House advisers debate changes in the overall strategy for the war, which will mark its 16th anniversary in October.
The Pentagon has said several thousand additional troops are needed to turn the tide in a conflict it has described as stalemate: Afghanistan’s U.S.backed army is struggling to defeat a Taliban insurgency and a growing number of Islamic State militants.
Yet some of Trump’s closest advisers are skeptical of the costly effort to prop up Afghanistan’s government, and the president himself has expressed frustration at the lack of progress in the war.
About 2,300 U.S. troops have been killed in the war. The latest casualties were two service members killed Wednesday when their convoy came under attack near Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan.
Sen. John McCain, RAriz., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged Trump on Thursday to “resolve the differences within his administration as soon as possible.”
Woman who urged suicide gets jail term
TAUNTON, Mass. - A young woman who as a teenager encouraged her suicidal boyfriend to kill himself in dozens of text messages and told him to “get back in” a truck filled with toxic gas was sentenced Thursday to 15 months in jail for involuntary manslaughter.
Michelle Carter was convicted in June by a judge who said her final instruction to Conrad Roy III caused his death. Carter was 17 when Roy, who was 18, was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in July 2014.
Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz gave Carter, now 20, a 2 ⁄ -year jail sentence but said she had to serve only 15 months of that. He also sentenced her to five years of probation. He granted a defense motion that will keep Carter out of jail until her appeals in state courts are exhausted.
The judge called the case, which has garnered international attention, “a tragedy for two families.”
Carter’s lawyer, Joseph Cataldo, asked the judge to spare her any jail time and instead give her five years of probation and require her to receive mental health counseling. He said she was struggling with mental health issues — bulimia, anorexia and depression — during the time she urged Roy to kill himself.
Gas meter move may have triggered blast
Workers may have been moving a gas meter when an explosion tore through a Minneapolis school building Wednesday, killing two people and injuring at least nine others, according to federal investigators who arrived Thursday.
A team from the National Transportation Safety Board was in Minneapolis to determine what caused the natural gas explosion at Minnehaha Academy. The bodies of two school workers — longtime receptionist Ruth Berg and custodian John Carlson — were found in the rubble.
Investigators will look into the movement of the gas meter, as well as whether the gas was turned off inside the building or at the street as the work was being done. The NTSB is investigating because it has jurisdiction over gas pipelines.