Nation & World Glance
Mayor ‘deeply disturbed’ over incident between cop and teen
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Anaheim officials pressed for calm Thursday after a night of raucous protests that followed an incident in which an off-duty policeman scuffled in his front yard with a boy, drew a weapon and fired a shot into the ground after another teen pushed him over a hedge and others surrounded him.
Mayor Tom Tait said he was “deeply disturbed” and angered by what he saw on video of the incident, but he also denounced violence and damage caused by demonstrators.
“The video shows an adult wrestling with a 13-year-old kid, and ultimately firing a gun,” Tait said. “This has been a blow to our community.”
The street demonstrations five years after unruly protests over two fatal police shootings served as a reminder that the home of Disneyland, dubbed “The Happiest Place on Earth,” has the problems of any city with 350,000 residents.
No one was hurt in the scuffle on a residential street that started Tuesday after the Los Angeles officer took action in an ongoing dispute with students walking after school. The officer had reported the problem in the past to local police, said Anaheim Sgt. Daron Wyatt.
Police Chief Raul Quezada defended his department’s decision to arrest two teens, but not the officer, who detained the 13-year-old boy after believing the boy threatened him. The investigation continues and the chief wouldn’t rule out charges against anyone involved.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent was used in the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean ruler’s outcast halfbrother who was poisoned last week at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, police said Friday.
The substance was detected on Kim’s eyes and face, Malaysia’s inspector general of police said in a written statement, citing a preliminary analysis from the country’s Chemistry Department.
According to investigators, two women — one of them Indonesian, the other Vietnamese — coated their hands with chemicals and wiped them on Kim’s face on Feb. 13 as he waited for a flight home to Macau, where he lived with his family.
Iraq retakes Mosul airport amid cautious advances against IS
SOUTH OF MOSUL, Iraq — Closely supported by the U.S.-led international coalition, Iraqi forces secured a series of cautious advances on Thursday, pushing into a sprawling military base outside of Mosul and onto the grounds of the city’s airport, where they took control of the runway.
The three-pronged attack began just after sunrise, with three convoys of Iraqi forces snaking north across Nineveh’s hilly desert on Mosul’s southern approach. Iraq’s special forces joined federal police and rapid response units in the push — part of a major assault that started earlier this week to drive IS from the western half of Iraq’s second-largest city. By afternoon they had entered the Ghazlani military base south of the city, as well as the airport. Coalition and Iraqi airstrikes that hit targets inside Mosul sent plumes of white smoke into the air on the horizon.
Dakota Access oil pipeline camp cleared of protesters
CANNON BALL, N.D. — Authorities on Thursday cleared a protest camp where opponents of the Dakota Access oil pipeline had gathered for the better part of a year, searching tents and huts and arresting dozens of holdouts who had defied a government order to leave.
It took 3½ hours for about 220 officers and 18 National Guardsmen to methodically search the protesters’ temporary homes. Authorities said they arrested 46 people, including a group of military veterans who had to be carried out and a man who climbed atop a building and stayed there for more than an hour before surrendering.
Native Americans who oppose the $3.8 billion pipeline established the Oceti Sakowin camp last April on federal land near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to draw attention to their concerns that the project will hurt the environment and sacred sites — claims Dallas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners disputes.