Turkish forces advance in Syria as US troops come under fire
AKCAKALE, Turkey — Turkish forces faced fierce resistance from U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters on the third day of Ankara’s offensive in northern Syria, as casualties mounted, international criticism of the campaign intensified and estimates put the number of those who fled the violence at 100,000. In a complicating twist, Washington said its troops also came under fire from NATO ally Turkey.
An explosion was reported later Friday in northern Syria near an outpost where U.S. troops are located, but none of the Americans were hurt, according to a U.S. official and a Syria war monitor. It was unclear whether it was from artillery or an airstrike, and it was the first time a coalition base was in the line of fire since Turkey’s offensive began.
Turkey said the U.S. was not targeted and its forces were returning fire after being targeted by Kurdish fighters about half a mile from the U.S. outpost. The Turkish Defense Ministry said it ended the strike after communicating with the U.S.
Navy Capt. Brook DeWalt, a Pentagon spokesman, says the artillery explosion came within a few hundred meters of the area where U.S. troops were.
The artillery strike so close to American forces showed the unpredictable nature of the conflict days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was getting U.S. troops out of harm’s way.
US-China issues of dispute remain vast despite trade truce
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration and China declared a temporary truce Friday in their 15-month trade war. Yet the grievances that led them to impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s goods remain largely unresolved.
The administration agreed to suspend a tariff hike on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports that was set to take effect Tuesday. And China agreed to buy up to $50 billion in U.S. farm products.
The de-escalation in tension between the world’s two largest economies was welcomed by financial markets. The U.S.-China hostilities have alarmed investors and escalated costs and uncertainties for many businesses.
President Donald Trump announced the cease-fire in a White House meeting with the top Chinese negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He. The news followed two days of talks in Washington, the 13th round of negotiations between the two countries’ delegations.
“It took us a long time to get here, but it’s something that’s going to be great for China and great for the USA,” Trump said.
Ethiopia’s reformist PM Abiy Ahmed wins Nobel peace prize
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to a dynamic young African leader whose sweeping reforms and surprising embrace of a bitter rival have been praised as an inspiration to the continent and a hopeful counterpoint to strongman movements far beyond it.
Now the task for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is reining in the ethnic violence that followed the loosening of repressive controls, and resisting any urge to crack down. “He deserves it and the new challenge is keeping it,” one outspoken African activist, Nigerian Shehu Sani, said of the award.
Abiy, a favorite to win despite speculation about young climate activist Greta Thunberg, told the Nobel committee he was humbled and thrilled to receive its 100th peace prize, calling peace “a rare commodity in our region.” He hoped the award would encourage other African leaders.
His countrymen, even some critics, celebrated. “‘We are proud as a nation!!!” his office said.
The 43-year-old prime minister has embraced the concept of “medemer,” a term in Ethiopia’s Amharic language that means unity and inclusivity, and has lived it. The son of a Muslim and an Orthodox Christian, and of mixed ethnic heritage, he is a symbol of what he would like to achieve in a country of some 80 ethnicities and some 110 million people. That fractious mix could also bring him down.
Man sentenced to death for Texas attack that killed 6
HOUSTON — A man who prosecutors say was driven by vengeance when he fatally shot six members of his ex-wife’s family in Texas, including four children, was sentenced Friday to death, a decision the lone survivor of the attack says will help her let go of “hurt and anger.”
Jurors sentenced Ronald Lee Haskell after deliberating for little more than four hours. The jury had to choose between life in prison without parole or a death sentence.
The same jury last month convicted Haskell of capital murder in the 2014 killings of Stephen and Katie Stay at their home in suburban Houston. The jury rejected his attorneys’ efforts to have him found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Haskell killed the couple and four of their children in the living room of their suburban Houston home in 2014. A fifth child, 15-year-old Cassidy Stay, was shot in the head but she survived by playing dead.
After the sentence was announced, Cassidy Stay, now 20, read a victim impact statement from the witness stand, saying she had initially had felt “hurt and anger” after learning that Haskell felt no remorse for killing her family.
Religious right sticks by Trump as political heat rises
As the threat of impeachment looms, President Donald Trump is digging in and taking solace in the base that helped him get elected: conservative evangelical Christians who laud his commitment to enacting their agenda.
Trump told reporters last week that “the biggest pastors” have assured him that Christians are “electrified” by his clash with Democrats who are probing his pushes for Ukraine to launch an investigation into a political rival, former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden.
And the prominent evangelicals who have proven Trump’s most stalwart allies are staying in his corner for the impeachment fight, even as some push back against his withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria — a move that imperils scores of Kurdish Muslims and Christians in the region. Although Trump’s Syria pullback is alarming conservative Christians whose support he needs to win reelection, their rallying against his impeachment indicates a bond that appears strong enough to withstand the current foreign policy rift as 2020 balloting nears.
South Carolina pastor and televangelist Rev. Mark Burns, a backer since the early days of Trump’s 2016 campaign, said in an interview that “it’s important that religious leaders reach out to the president.” Burns contended that Trump’s struggles are partly connected to his Christian faith, adding that “Satan wants to remove a vessel that God has installed to again be a blessing to the religious community.”
Burns said he spoke with Trump briefly last week, when the president met with black conservatives at the White House, and recalled hearing the Holy Spirit “as I crossed the street to walk into Trump Tower” for their first meeting in 2015. Maryland-based Pentecostal Bishop Harry Jackson, who has met with Trump at the White House, said that he plans to hold a large prayer gathering this year for “healing in the nation.”
