US mulls slowing Afghanistan exit

US mulls slowing Afghanistan exit

KABUL, Afghanistan

The United States is considering slowing its military exit from Afghanistan by keeping a larger-than-planned troop presence this year and next because the new Afghan government is proving to be a more-reliable partner, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Saturday.

Carter, on his first overseas trip since starting the Pentagon job Tuesday, also said the Obama administration is “rethinking” the counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan, although he did not elaborate.

Carter did not say Obama was considering keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016, only that the president was rethinking the pace of troop withdrawals for 2015 and 2016.

1 dead, 3 rescued after tugboat sinks

FIRE ISLAND, N.Y.

One crew member has been found dead and three others were rescued after a tugboat sank in icy waters off Fire Island in New York.

The Coast Guard says the tugboat called Sea Bear sank about 2 p.m. Saturday.

Three male crew members in immersion suits were rescued by the Coast Guard from the water a mile off a section of the island known as Fire Island Pines.

Coast Guard officials say the body of the fourth crew member was recovered shortly after 5 p.m. after a search by three Coast Guard boats, a helicopter and two other tugboats.

Americans to be monitored for Ebola

ATLANTA

Public-health officials said Saturday that a number of Americans will return from west Africa to be monitored after possibly being exposed to Ebola.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said several Americans who may have been exposed to Ebola in Sierra Leone would be monitored. The CDC did not specify how many Americans are coming back, but University of Nebraska Medical Center officials say they’ll be monitoring four Americans.

Salvage continues at copter crash site

MIAMI

The largest sections of a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed during a nighttime training mission were pulled Saturday from the waters off Florida’s Panhandle amid efforts to recover the remains of all seven Marines and four soldiers who were killed.

The salvage operations that had been interrupted Friday night by bad weather were expected to finish late Saturday, said Eglin Air Force Base spokesman Andy Bourland.

Robbers gang-rape nun in her 70s

KOLKATA, India

A nun in her 70s was gang-raped by a group of bandits Saturday when she tried to prevent them from robbing a Christian missionary school in eastern India, police said, the latest crime to focus attention on the scourge of sexual violence in the country.

The nun was hospitalized in serious condition after the attack, which was committed by seven or eight men at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School in Nadia district, 50 miles northeast of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state, a police officer said.

The men escaped, and police are searching for them, said the officer.

China quake kills 2

BEIJING

An earthquake in eastern China has killed two people and damaged thousands of homes.

Officials say the quake struck in the Anhui province city of Fuyang on Saturday afternoon and that 13 people also were injured.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake measured magnitude 4.7.

Fuyang is a city of about 10 million people in a region that relies on coal mining and agriculture.

Associated Press