COLU @ CONCEPTS

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump briskly overruled congressional Republicans and his own treasury secretary to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government operating and raise America’s debt limit. The immediate goal was ensuring money for hurricane relief, but in the process the president brazenly rolled his own party’s leaders. In deal-making mode, Trump sided Wednesday with the Democratic leaders — “Chuck and Nancy,” as he amiably referred later to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — as they pushed for the three-month deal. The deal had the effect of brushing aside the urgings of GOP leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for a much longer extension to the debt limit. Republicans want that longer allowance to avoid having to take another vote on the politically toxic issue before the 2018 congressional elections. The White House session painted a vivid portrait of discord at the highest ranks of the Republican Par...

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said Obama administration guidance on how colleges should handle sexual assault complaints isn’t working and suggested it needs revisions. She was expected to detail her plans Thursday in what the U.S. Education Department described as a “major policy address on Title IX enforcement.” Enacted in 1972, Title IX is a federal law that forbids discrimination based on sex in education. It was once seen as a measure to ensure equity in college sports, but in recent years has been associated with efforts to address sexual assault and harassment at college campuses across the country. The Obama administration reshaped how colleges handle complaints of sexual assault, setting new rules and launching investigations into colleges accused of straying from them. DeVos hasn’t shared her plans on the topic, but in an interview with The Associated Press she said the system “is not working right and well for anyone.” “We know we have to get this right,...

BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck a military position near the Mediterranean coast in western Syria early Thursday, killing two soldiers and causing material damage, the Syrian army said. The airstrike targeted a facility near the town of Masyaf that some said was tied to Syria’s chemical weapons program, in a stronghold of President Bashar Assad that is also heavily protected by the Russians. In a statement, the Syrian army said the Israeli warplanes fired several missiles while in Lebanese air space, and warned of the “dangerous repercussions of such hostile acts on the security and stability of the region.” There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has rarely confirmed or commented on such strikes. While largely staying out of the Syrian civil war, Israel has carried out a number of airstrikes against suspected arms shipments believed to be bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which is fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces. Israel has ...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Pope Francis opens the first full day in his Colombia visit on Thursday with messages to political leaders and citizens alike encouraging all to rally behind a peace process seeking an end for Latin America’s longest-running conflict and to address the inequalities that fueled it. Francis will kick off the day with a meeting with President Juan Manuel Santos at the presidential palace, where he is likely to call for a building of bridges among elites bitterly divided by last year’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. It will be followed in the afternoon by an outdoor Mass in Simon Bolivar Park that is expected to be attended by hundreds of thousands of worshippers in one of Latin America’s most-fervently Roman Catholic nations. In between, he is to meet with bishops from around the region, including his first encounter with clergy from neighboring Venezuela, who are looking for the pope to demand accountability fro...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Some of the oldest and largest Confederate statues in the U.S. tower over Monument Avenue, a four-lane road that has served as Richmond’s parade route. The avenue, lined with trees, churches and historic mansions, cuts through the heart of the city and is perhaps the most prestigious address in all of Richmond. The 5-mile street draws history buffs from around the world and thousands of runners stride past the monuments during the city’s marathon. The road takes its name from the statues that mark its major intersections. The century-old monuments may also make Richmond the next ground zero in the fight over Civil War statues. The city, the former capital of the Confederacy, was in the midst of studying how to add historical context to the statues when white supremacists converged on Charlottesville — about 75 miles (120 kilometers) away — on Aug. 12. A woman was killed that day when authorities say a man who has been described as an admirer of Adolf ...

BANGKOK (AP) — Journalists saw new fires burning Thursday in a Myanmar village that had been abandoned by Rohingya Muslims, and pages ripped from Islamic texts that were left on the ground. That intensifies doubts about government claims that members of the persecuted minority have been destroying their own homes. About two dozen journalists saw the fires in Gawdu Zara village in northern Rakhine state on a government-controlled trip. Some 164,000 Rohingya from the area have fled across the border in Bangladesh in less than two weeks since Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked police outposts in Gawdu Zara and several others, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday. The military has said nearly 400 people, most they described as insurgents, had died in clashes and that troops were conducting “clearance operations.” It blames insurgents for setting the villages on fire, without offering proof. The Rohingya who have fled Myanmar, however, all described large-scale violence...

TOKYO (AP) — North Korea’s latest nuclear test was part theater, part propaganda and maybe even part fake. But experts say it was also a major display of something very real: Pyongyang’s mastery of much of the know-how it needs to reach its goal of becoming a full-fledged nuclear state. It remains unclear whether North Korea tested, as it claims, a hydrogen bomb ready to be mounted on an ICBM. But Sunday’s test, the sixth and most powerful North Korea has conducted since its first in 2006, was a stunning advance in its demonstrated ability to build high-yield nuclear weapons. The explosion is believed to have ranged from 140 kilotons to potentially double that — or more — if it was conducted at a greater depth than has been calculated. The power of the blast is important. It will likely prove to be at least 10 times stronger than anything the North tested before. That’s an important indicator of whether the device was the hydrogen bomb North Korea says it was. H-bombs, m...