SYRIA HOLDS FUNERALS DAY AFTER ATTACKS
Mourners in southern Syria attended mass funerals Thursday for least 216 people killed in coordinated attacks by Islamic State fighters on a usually peaceful city and surrounding countryside. In the worst violence to hit the area since the country’s conflict began, the militants also reportedly abducted at least 18 people, activists said.
The simultaneous attacks on the city of Sweida and surrounding villages a day earlier evoked the dark days of Islamic State violence that beleaguered Syria and neighboring Iraq during the group’s heyday in 2014 and 2015. The abduction of civilians — activists say at least 14 were women — also were reminiscent of the group’s tactic of taking hostages and using women as sex slaves.
A mass funeral was held Thursday in Sweida, where men gathered in a hall to pay their respects to the dead.
DeVos’ family yacht untied, set adrift in Ohio.
A luxury yacht owned by the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos suffered damage when someone untied it early Sunday in Ohio, sending it adrift on Lake Erie with the crew on board. A crew member on the SeaQuest called police to report that he and other members awoke to find the yacht floating away from the dock.
The crew managed to gain control of the vessel, but not before it scraped the dock. The yacht suffered $5,000 to $10,000 damage, according to a Huron Police Department report.
Rep. Jim Jordan announces bid for House speaker.
WASHINGTON» Conservative Rep. Jim Jordan launched a longshot bid for speaker of the House on Thursday, casting himself as a loyal foot soldier of President Donald Trump and the best candidate to carry out the president’s agenda if Republicans keep their majority in the midterm elections.
Jordan, R-Ohio, argued in a letter to colleagues that the Republican-led Congress has let down Trump.
House passes annual defense bill, avoiding big policy clashes with Trump.
WASHINGTON» The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed the final version of the annual defense authorization bill, giving its approval to a record-setting military budget and changes to policies on Russia and China that nonetheless avoids direct clashes with the Trump administration.
The 359-54 vote on the $716 billion measure, which the Senate is expected to take up in coming weeks, comes after one of the shortest negotiation processes for the behemoth defense bill in recent history — an indicator of how few politically controversial issues arose during the debate.
New Jersey radio show hosts punished for jibe at Sikh attorney general.
A New Jersey radio station suspended two talk-show hosts for referring to state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, a practicing Sikh, as “Turban Man.”
In broadcast comments Wednesday, Dennis Malloy, the co-host of a program on Townsquare Media-owned WKXW-FM in Ewing, said he was “never going to know his name,” and would refer to Grewal as “the guy with the turban.” Co-host Judi Franco, in a singsong voice, responded, “Turban Man.”