Nation & World Glance
LEESBURG, Va. — Lyndon LaRouche Jr., the political extremist who ran for president in every election from 1976 to 2004 has died. He was 96.
LaRouche’s political action committee confirmed Wednesday on its website that LaRouche died a day earlier.
The cult-like figure, who espoused a wide range of conspiracy theories and advocated for an overhaul of the world’s economic and financial systems, ran first as a U. S. Labor Party candidate and later, after an apparent shift to the right, as a Democratic or independent candidate.
In 1986, LaRouche described himself as being in the tradition of the American Whig party, a forerunner of the Republican Party in the first half of the 19th century. In 1990, he ran unsuccessfully to represent Virginia in Congress.
His views evolved throughout his life, but a central tenet of his apocalyptic platform warned of an inevitable global downward slide into crisis.
U.S. says ex-intel official defected to Iran, revealed secrets
WASHINGTON — A former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran despite warnings from the FBI has been charged with revealing classified information to the Tehran government, including the code name and secret mission of a Pentagon program, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Justice Department also accused Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, of betraying former colleagues in the U.S. intelligence community by feeding details about their personal and professional lives to Iran. Four hackers linked to the Iranian government, charged in the same indictment, used that information to target the intelligence workers online, prosecutors said.
Witt had been on the FBI’s radar at least a year before she defected after she attended an Iranian conference and appeared in anti-American videos. She was warned about her activities, but told agents that she would not provide sensitive information about her work if she returned to Iran, prosecutors say. She was not arrested at the time.
“Once a holder of a top secret security clearance, Monica Witt actively sought opportunities to undermine the United States and support the government of Iran — a country which poses a serious threat to our national security,” said FBI executive assistant director Jay Tabb, the bureau’s top national security official.
Tabb said “she provided information that could cause serious damage to national security,” though he did not provide specifics.
China, US start trade talks ahead of tariff deadline
BEIJING — U.S. and Chinese negotiators have begun trade talks President Donald Trump says will help decide whether he postpones a planned tariff increase on $200 billion of imports from China.
Businesspeople and economists say the two days of talks that started Thursday are unlikely to resolve a fight over Beijing’s technology ambitions. They say Chinese negotiators are trying to persuade Trump they are making enough progress to postpone the March 2 duty increase.
The chief U.S. envoy, Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and his Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier Liu He, shook hands at the start of the meeting at a government guesthouse but said nothing to reporters.
Trump agreed in December to postpone further punitive duties on Chinese goods while the two sides negotiate. That suspension expires March 1.
Activists: More than 200 IS fighters surrender in east Syria
AL-OMAR OIL FIELD BASE, Syria — Islamic State group militants, many of them foreigners, surrendered to U.S.-backed fighters in eastern Syria on Wednesday, bringing the Kurdish-led force closer to taking full control of the last remaining area controlled by the extremists, a Kurdish official and activists said.
Çiyager Amed, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces, confirmed that a number of IS fighters who had been holed up in Baghouz gave themselves up, without giving numbers. He said most of those remaining were Iraqis and foreigners and that few civilians remained in the tiny area still controlled by IS, although women and children continued to trickle out of the enclave.
The capture of Baghouz and nearby areas would mark the end of a devastating four-year global campaign against the extremist group. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the group is all but defeated, and announced in December that he would withdraw all American forces from Syria.
Amed said the operation was slowed down due to the militants’ use of civilians as human shields.
Mustafa Bali, an SDF spokesman, said hundreds of women and children came out Wednesday.
Bali also said the fighters who remained appeared to be among the IS elite who have lots of experience and are fighting “fiercely.’
“They also don’t have other options. Either to surrender or die,” he said.
Powerful storm dumps more rain and snow across the West
LOS ANGELES — Heavy rain again raised the risk of mudslides in Southern California burn areas where evacuations were ordered during a powerful storm that flooded roads, toppled trees and cut power further north.
The system known as an atmospheric river snaked through southern Oregon, Northern California and western Nevada while feeding on a deep plume of moisture stretching across the Pacific Ocean to near Hawaii, the National Weather Service said.
The tempest followed more than a week of severe weather in the Pacific Northwest and was the latest in a series that has all but eliminated drought-level dryness in California this winter.
Mandatory evacuations were in effect for areas near a burn scar in the Santa Ana Mountains southeast of Los Angeles where officials said the risk of debris flows was high.
Winter storm warnings were posted in the snowladen Sierra Nevada, where the forecast said up to 7 feet (2.1 meters) of new snow could be dumped at elevations above 9,000 feet.
The National Weather Service recorded winds gusting to 132 mph atop the Mount Rose ski resort southwest of Reno, Nevada.
A backcountry avalanche warning was issued throughout the Sierra.