Iraq: US captured top IS chemical- arms engineer

Iraq: US captured top IS chemical- arms engineer

BAGHDAD

U.S. special forces captured the head of the Islamic State group’s unit trying to develop chemical weapons in a raid last month in northern Iraq, Iraqi and U.S. officials told The Associated Press, the first known major success of Washington’s more-aggressive policy of pursuing IS militants on the ground.

The Obama administration launched the new strategy in December, deploying a commando force to Iraq that it said would be dedicated to capturing and killing IS leaders in clandestine operations, as well as generating intelligence leading to more raids.

U.S. officials said last week that the expeditionary team had captured an Islamic State leader but had refused to identify him, saying only that he had been held for two or three weeks and was being questioned.

Two Iraqi intelligence officials identified the man as Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, who worked for Saddam Hussein’s now-dissolved Military Industrialization Authority where he specialized in chemical and biological weapons.

Texas executes man

HUNTSVILLE, Texas

A man convicted of killing five people including his ex-wife in a 1997 shooting rampage near Houston was put to death Wednesday.

Coy Wesbrook’s lethal injection was the eighth this year nationally and fourth in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any state. Two Georgia inmates have been executed so far in 2016, plus one each in Alabama and Florida.

1st transplant of uterus in US fails

WASHINGTON

The nation’s first uterus transplant has failed, the Cleveland Clinic announced Wednesday, saying doctors had removed the organ.

A 26-year-old woman received the transplant Feb. 24 and seemed to be doing well, even appearing briefly at a news conference Monday with her surgeons.

But the woman suffered a sudden complication that required surgical removal of the uterus the next day, the hospital said. The patient, identified only as Lindsey, is recovering from that operation, as doctors and pathologists try to determine what went wrong. No information about the complication was provided.

Tests on knife will take weeks

LOS ANGELES

The knife reportedly found at O.J. Simpson’s former estate likely isn’t connected to the killings of his ex-wife and her friend, a law- enforcement official said.

But it will take at least three weeks to know for sure.

Investigators are examining the knife for DNA or other material that possibly could link the weapon to the 1994 murders of Simpson’s ex-wife and her friend. Results aren’t expected for at least three weeks, Capt. Andy Neiman said Wednesday.

Storms spark floods, evacuations in South

BOSSIER CITY, La.

Cars were submerged by water, residents forced to flee their homes with housecats and birds in tow, and the Louisiana National Guard and others rescued people by boat and in big military trucks as torrential rains Wednesday drenched parts of Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas with nearly a foot of rain.

Two people drowned in Oklahoma and Texas, and the rain is expected to stay in the forecast for much of the week.

Up to 7 inches of rain was expected through Wednesday and up to a foot by the end of the weekend. Flash-flood watches were issued for areas from Port O’Connor, Texas, to near Springfield, Ill.

Associated Press