Coast Guard: Fire extinguished on platform in Gulf

Coast Guard: Fire extinguished on platform in Gulf

A fire broke out on an oil- production platform in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, forcing four workers to evacuate by lifeboat before the blaze was extinguished. There were no injuries, and inspectors found no sign of pollution, authorities said.

The blaze was reported on a platform about 80 miles south of Grand Isle, La., and was extinguished nearly four hours later, the Coast Guard said in a statement.

The four workers were rescued by the crew of the 130-foot Mary Wyatt Milano, a supply vessel, the Coast Guard said. They were flown to a hospital in Houma, La., to be evaluated, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in a statement.

The company that owns the platform, Renaissance Offshore LLC, has suspended oil production on it and a second platform it owns, the statement said.

Trump selects Coats for top intelligence post

WASHINGTON

President-elect Donald Trump has selected former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a role that would thrust him into the center of the intelligence community that Trump has publicly challenged, a person with knowledge of the decision said Thursday.

Coats served as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee before retiring from Congress last year. If confirmed by the Senate, he would oversee the umbrella office created after 9/11 to improve coordination of U.S. spy and law enforcement agencies.

The person with knowledge of Trump’s decision was not authorized to discuss the pick publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Despite Syria truce, car bomb kills 10 in Assad stronghold

BEIRUT

A large explosion rocked a Syrian government-held coastal town on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens – an attack that was a stark remainder of the prevailing insecurity in the war-torn country despite a nearly week-old cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey.

The explosion shook a main street in Jableh, in the coastal Latakia province, a stronghold of President Bashar Assad and the heartland of Syria’s Alawites, a Shiite offshoot to which Assad’s family also belongs.

It was the first such large-scale bombing since the cease-fire was agreed on last week.

Texas bathroom bill may spark N.C.-like uproar

AUSTIN, Texas

Top Texas Republicans are eager to bring a fight that sparked upheaval and business boycotts in North Carolina to the country’s largest conservative state, unveiling Thursday a bill that would ban transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice.

The “Texas Privacy Act” requires all Texas residents to use the bathroom or locker room according to the gender on their birth certificates and prohibits local governments from passing ordinances designed to protect gay rights in public restrooms and other “intimate settings.”

Bill sponsor Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, a Republican, said her “thoughtful and unique” bill won’t create a “bathroom police” and will allow anyone to lodge complaints upon seeing something in public restrooms that makes them uncomfortable. She added the bill was written “not to start a controversy but to end one.”

Associated Press