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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2017
WORLD IN BRIEF
Associated Press
White House adviser asked FBI
to dispute Russia reports
WASHINGTON — White House chief of staff Reince Prie-
bus asked top FBI officials to dispute media reports that Donald
Trump’s campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Rus-
sian intelligence agents during the election, according to three
White House officials who confirmed the unusual contact with
law enforcement involved in a pending investigation.
The officials said that Priebus’ Feb. 15 request to FBI Director
James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe came as the
White House sought to discredit a New York Times report about
calls between Russian intelligence officials and people involved
with Trump’s presidential run.
As of this morning, the FBI had not commented publicly on
the veracity of the report and there was no indication it planned
to, despite the White House’s request.
The White House officials would only discuss the matter on
the condition of anonymity. Two hours later, Trump panned news
stories that rely on anonymous sources, telling a conservative
conference that reporters “shouldn’t be allowed to use sources
unless they use somebody’s name.”
White House officials said it was the FBI that first raised con-
cerns about the Times reporting but told Priebus the bureau could
not weigh in publicly on the matter. The officials said McCabe
and Comey instead gave Priebus the go-ahead to discredit the
story publicly, something the FBI has not confirmed.
Mike McCleary/The Bismarck Tribune
A law enforcement officer climbs a ladder to speak to one
of the final holdouts of the Dakota Access Pipeline protest
camp sitting atop a wood structure built at the Oceti Sakow-
in camp Thursday near Cannon Ball, N.D. After a couple of
hours the protester came down on his own and was arrested.
ETP got permission for the lake work last month from the pro-en-
ergy Trump administration, though American Indian tribes con-
tinue fighting the project in court.
The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes say the
pipeline threatens their drinking water, cultural sites and ability to
practice their religion, which depends on pure water. ETP rejects
those claims and says the pipeline is safe.
Washington state Senate passes
bill making fourth DUI a felony Nevada plans July pot sales
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Senate has unanimously passed a despite warning of US crackdown
bill that would make driving under the influence a felony if the
driver has three or more prior offenses on their criminal record
within 10 years.
Senate Bill 5037 passed Thursday and now heads to the
House, where it has stalled in previous years.
Under the measure, a person who is charged with a fourth
DUI, and has no other criminal history, would be subject to a
standard sentencing range of 13 to 17 months in jail.
Dakota Access oil pipeline could
be operating within weeks
CANNON BALL, N.D. — Oil could be flowing through
the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline in less than two weeks,
according to court documents filed by the developer just before
police and soldiers started clearing a protest camp in North
Dakota where pipeline opponents had gathered for the better part
of a year.
Energy Transfer Partners has finished drilling under Lake
Oahe and will soon be laying pipe under the Missouri River res-
ervoir, the Dallas-based company said.
“Dakota Access estimates and targets that the pipeline will be
complete and ready to flow oil anywhere between the week of
March 6, 2017, and April 1, 2017,” company attorney William
Scherman said in the documents filed in Washington, D.C., on
Tuesday.
The work under the Missouri River reservoir is the last stretch
of the 1,200-mile pipeline that will move oil from North Dakota
through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois.
CARSON CITY, Nev. — Nevada still plans to launch rec-
reational marijuana sales in July despite warnings this week of
a federal crackdown by the administration of President Donald
Trump, state officials said today.
Marijuana possession and sales are illegal under federal law,
but Nevada voters decided in November to allow people age 21
or older to use pot recreationally — becoming one of eight states
to do so.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday that the
United States Justice Department will step up enforcement of
federal laws prohibiting recreational — not medical — mari-
juana. No immediate action accompanied the statement, came in
response to a reporter’s question.
That has not prompted the Nevada agency tasked with craft-
ing rules governing recreational marijuana sales to change its
timeline for ensuring dispensaries can open this summer, said
agency spokeswoman Stephanie Klapstein.
“As of now, the Department of Taxation is moving forward
with our regulation development as planned,” she said.
The Democratic leader of Nevada’s state Senate, Aaron Ford,
criticized the White House for what he called an “overzealous
attack on the will of Nevada voters.”
Malaysia: VX nerve agent killed
outcast North Korean scion
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The poison used to kill the
estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader at a crowded air
terminal in Malaysia was the banned chemical weapon VX nerve
agent, police said today, as they began a sweep of the airport for
any traces of the deadly toxin.
The revelation that VX nerve agent was used in the Feb. 13
attack boosted speculation that Pyongyang dispatched a hit squad
to kill Kim Jong Nam, the outcast older sibling of North Korea’s
ruler.
The case also raised questions about public safety, although
there was no sign that any bystanders had fallen ill. Police said
one of the alleged attackers had been vomiting in the hours after
the attack, but there were no reports that anyone else had been
sickened.
Asked if people should avoid the airport because of fears
of contamination, Malaysia’s Inspector-General of Police Kha-
lid Abu Bakar said: “No. No. No. But I don’t know. I am not
the expert.” He said experts would decontaminate the airport to
ensure its safety.
VX nerve agent, deadly even in minute amounts, was detected
on Kim’s eyes and face, Khalid said earlier in a written state-
ment, citing a preliminary analysis from the country’s Chemis-
try Department.
Iraqi forces enter western Mosul,
take airport from IS
BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces pushed into the first neighbor-
hood in western Mosul today and took full control of the inter-
national airport on the city’s southwestern edge from the Islamic
State group, according to Iraqi officials.
The gains mark the first key moves in the battle, now in its
sixth day, to rout IS militants from the western half of the city of
Mosul, the extremists’ last urban stronghold in Iraq.
The push by Iraqi forces into Mosul’s western Mamun neigh-
borhood was followed by intense clashes with IS militants,
according to an Iraqi special forces officer on the ground, who
spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
An Associated Press team near the front line saw at least four
wounded special forces’ members and the bodies of three sol-
diers, suggesting more intense fighting than the previous day.
Iraq’s military does not release official casualty information.
Earlier today, the spokesman of the Joint Military Operation
Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, said Iraqi forces had also
retaken a sprawling military base adjacent to the airport.
Car bomb near Syria town
captured from IS kills 35 people
BEIRUT — A car bombing north of a Syrian town just cap-
tured by Turkish forces and Syrian opposition fighters from the
Islamic State group killed at least 35 people today, mostly civil-
ians who had gathered trying to go back home, Turkey’s news
agency and Syrian activists said.
According to Mohammed al-Tawil, a leading Syrian opposi-
tion fighter in the area, a suicide attacker blew his small pick-up
truck outside a security office in Sousian village, about 8 kilome-
ters (5 miles) north of al-Bab.
The explosion went off as the opposition fighters were orga-
nizing the return of civilians from al-Bab who had been displaced
by the fighting for their town, he said.
Al-Bab, which had been controlled by IS since late 2013, was
captured on Thursday, after more than two months of fighting led
by Turkish troops supporting Syrian opposition fighters.
IS militants who withdrew from the town still control areas
around it.
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