Kurdish fighters seize IS-held land

Kurdish fighters seize IS-held land

BEIRUT

U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters captured large sections of a strategic town on the Syria-Turkish border Monday, dealing the biggest setback yet to the Islamic State group, which lost a key supply line for their nearby self-proclaimed capital.

The seizure of Tal Abyad threatened to flare tensions between Kurds and ethnic Arabs, who accused the Kurdish militia of deliberately displacing thousands of people from the town, which has a mixed population.

Redur Khalil, a spokesman for the main Kurdish fighting force, known as the YPG, said Kurdish fighters entered from the east and were advancing west toward the town’s center amid fierce clashes with pockets of IS resistance.

Head of Spokane NAACP resigns

SPOKANE, Wash.

Rachel Dolezal resigned as president of the NAACP’s Spokane chapter Monday just days after her parents said she is a white woman posing as black – a dizzyingly swift fall for an activist credited with injecting remarkable new energy into the civil-rights organization.

The furor touched off fierce debate around the country over racial identity and divided the NAACP itself.

Man with rifle shot near Air Force base

JACKSONVILLE, Ark.

Guards shot and critically wounded a civilian outside a sprawling Air Force base in Arkansas on Monday after the man drove his SUV over a curb near the main gate, crashed through a sign and got out of the vehicle holding a rifle, the base commander said.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the man, whose name hasn’t been released, was trying to enter Little Rock Air Force Base, which is about 15 miles northeast of its namesake city.

Col. Charles Brown Jr., the base’s commander, said two guards stationed at the base’s main gate quickly recognized a threat and shot the man. He said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the man fired his weapon, how many shots were fired or if the man exchanged words with the two guards.

12 become ill on Fiji-to-LA flight

LOS ANGELES

Twelve passengers who became ill on a flight from Fiji to Los Angeles have been examined and released.

Los Angeles International Airport spokeswoman Nancy Castles says Fiji Airways Flight 810 arrived from Nadi International Airport about 1:45 p.m. Monday. The crew reported a dozen passengers were sick with stomach problems.

The 12 passengers were not traveling together but all stayed at the same hotel in Nadi.

Pope calls for urgent environmental action

VATICAN CITY

A draft copy of Pope Francis’ eagerly awaited encyclical on the environment calls for urgent action to protect the Earth and fight global warming, which the pope says is “mostly” due to human activity and the burning of fossil fuels.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the document that was leaked to the Italian newsweekly L’Espresso and published on its website Monday was not the final version and that the official encyclical still would be released as scheduled Thursday.

The L’Espresso draft, which was published in galley form in Italian, makes many of the same points that Francis and his advisers have been making in the monthslong rollout of the document.

The draft says population growth isn’t to blame for ecological problems but rather the consumerist, wasteful behavior of the rich.

Associated Press