Nation/World Glance
Source: Kushner eyed back channel with Russia
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s sonin-law and now top White House adviser Jared Kushner proposed a secret back channel between the Kremlin and the Trump transition team during a December meeting with a leading Russian diplomat.
Kushner spoke with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about creating that line of communication to facilitate sensitive discussions aimed at exploring the incoming administration’s options with Russia as it was developing its Syria policy, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke with The Associated Press.
The intent was to connect Trump’s chief national security adviser at the time, Michael Flynn, with Russian military leaders, said this person, who wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss private policy deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Islamic State claims responsibility for Egypt attack
MINYA, Egypt — The Islamic State group on Saturday claimed responsibility for the attack on a bus carrying Christians on their way to a remote desert monastery south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, which killed 29.
Egypt responded to Friday’s attack by launching a series of airstrikes that targeted what it said were militant bases in eastern Libya in which the assailants were trained. On Saturday, the military said on its official Facebook page that the airstrikes were continuing “day and night” and that they have “completely” destroyed their targets. It gave no details.
“What you’ve seen today will not go unpunished,” President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in a televised address to the nation late Friday.
Southern rock founding father Gregg Allman dies
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Music legend Gregg Allman, whose bluesy vocals and soulful touch on the Hammond B-3 organ helped propel The Allman Brothers Band to superstardom and spawn Southern rock, died Saturday, his manager said. He was 69.
Allman died peacefully and surrounded by loved ones at his home near Savannah, Ga., his manager, Michael Lehman, told The Associated Press.