COLU @ CONCEPTS

BEIRUT (AP) — A top Syrian Kurdish official on Wednesday welcomed the U.S. decision to arm Kurdish fighters with heavier weapons, saying it would “legitimize” the force as it prepares to march on Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State group. But the decision, announced by the Trump administration Tuesday, is sure to rattle Turkey, which considers the Syrian Kurdish group, known as the YPG, to be a terror organization. The YPG forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which has driven the IS group from much of northern Syria with the help of U.S. air support. The U.S. is eager to expel IS from Raqqa and sees the Syrian Kurds, who are among the most effective fighters in the country, as the best placed force for the task. Ilham Ahmed, a top official in the Syrian Democratic Forces’ political office, said the decision to provide heavier arms carries “political meaning” and “legitimizes the YPG and the Syrian Democratic Forces.” She said the decision is like...

ABOARD THE COAST GUARD CUTTER STRATTON, in the eastern Pacific Ocean (AP) — The drone is loaded onto a catapult on the flight deck. From a control room, a technician revs the motor until the go-ahead is given to press the red button. Then the ScanEagle lifts off with a whoosh and, true to its lofty name, soars majestically over the wide blue sea. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Stratton is steaming more than 500 miles south of the Guatemala-El Salvador border, along the biggest narcotics smuggling corridor in the world. Its mission: intercept vessels hauling cocaine bound for America’s cities. In this Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017 photo, the ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle takes off from the flight deck of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Stratton somewhere in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The Boeing-made ScanEagle, was deployed aboard the Stratton for the first time during this three-month mission. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills) It is a monumental task that has grown even larger in the ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will meet Wednesday with Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat at the White House, officials say, marking the highest level, face-to-face contact with Russia of the American leader’s young presidency. It would also signal that the two countries have improved ties that Trump recently described as being at an “all-time low.” Trump’s talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take place after the Russian’s meetings earlier in the day with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. A Russian plan to stabilize Syria after more than six years of civil war is the most urgent foreign policy topic on the agenda. But the meeting will be impossible to separate from the Trump administration’s unfolding political drama in Washington, where FBI and congressional investigations are looking into possible collusion between Trump campaign associates and the Kremlin related to last year’s presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have asserted that Mosc...

KABARTO CAMP, Iraq (AP) — They made the captive children, malnourished and weak from hunger, fight over a single tomato. Then the Islamic State group militants told them, “In paradise, you’ll be able to eat whatever you want. But first you have to get to paradise, and you do that by blowing yourself up.” The lesson was part of the indoctrination inflicted by the militants on boys from Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority after the extremist group overran the community’s towns and villages in northern Iraq. The group forced hundreds of boys, some as young as 7 or 8, into training to become fighters and suicide bombers, infusing them with its murderous ideology. Now boys who escaped captivity are struggling to regain some normalcy, living in camps for the displaced along with what is left of their families. After surviving beatings, watching horrific atrocities, being held for months or years apart from their parents, losing loved ones and narrowly escaping death themselves, they a...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — New South Korean President Moon Jae-in said as he took office Wednesday that he was open to visiting rival North Korea under the right conditions to talk about Pyongyang’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles. Moon’s softer stance on North Korea could create friction with Washington, which has swung from threats of military action to hints of dialogue as it seeks to formulate a policy under President Donald Trump. Liberal candidate Moon Jae-in was leading the South Korean presidential election with 60 percent of votes counted. (May 9) South Korea’s first liberal leader in a decade, Moon also said he’ll “sincerely negotiate” with the United States, Seoul’s top ally, and China, South Korea’s top trading partner, over the contentious deployment of an advanced U.S. missile-defense system in southern South Korea. The system has angered Beijing, which says its powerful radars allow Washington to spy on its own military operations. In a spe...

WASHINGTON (AP) — With his stunning firing of FBI Director James Comey, Donald Trump is propelling the presidency into rarely traversed territory. His surprise announcement Tuesday flouts decades of presidential deference to the nation’s top law enforcement agency and its independence. It earns Trump the dubious distinction of being the first president since Richard Nixon to fire the official overseeing an investigation involving the commander in chief. And it cements a clear pattern of a man willing to challenge — in dramatic fashion — the institutions created to hold the president accountable. “That’s why this is unprecedented,” said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian. “He’s showed signs of not having a great deal of respect for the system by which this investigation has been operating.” Sen. Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican who is overseeing one of the congressional investigations into Russia’s election interference, said: “I am troubled by the timing a...