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WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are proposing to authorize a mission to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels with an explicit ban on deploying U.S. ground forces to fight the Islamic State group. The language will likely be included as an amendment to a spending bill this week to keep the government open. The mission is a central plank of President Barack Obama's strategy to fight the Islamic State group. Democrats are reviewing the proposal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says a grateful nation honors the acts of valor by two Vietnam War soldiers who risked their lives to protect fellow troops. Obama today bestowed the Medal of Honor on Army Command Sgt. Maj. Bennie Adkins and Army Specialist Donald Sloat, nearly half a century after they fought in Vietnam. Adkins ran through enemy fire while rescuing injured comrades. He was injured but survived. Sloat did not. He pulled an enemy grenade close to his body to protect fellow troops from the blast. Congress granted an exemption to allow the soldiers to receive the medal so many years later.
POLLOCK PINES, Calif. (AP) — Crews are trying to get better access in steep terrain to a wildfire near California's Yosemite National Park that has forced hundreds of people from their homes. State fire officials say about 900 residents out of some 400 homes have been evacuated since the central California fire began yesterday afternoon.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police in Los Angeles say they followed proper protocol when they demanded identification from an actress and her boyfriend while investigating a 911 call alleging lewd conduct. Actress Daniele Watts, who appeared in "Django Unchained," says she was unjustly handcuffed and detained Thursday after refusing to provide identification to officers responding to a report of lewd conduct in a car parked along Ventura Boulevard. Her boyfriend says he suspects that onlookers assumed Watts to be a prostitute and him to be a client because she is black and he is white.
CHEVY CHASE, Md. (AP) — A longtime Washington insider who embodied what it meant to have clout in the nation's capital has died. Thomas Boggs was a lawyer, lobbyist and Democratic fundraiser. He died this morning at his home outside Washington at the age of 73. He was the son of the late House Majority Leader Hale Boggs and Lindy Boggs, who succeeded her husband in Congress after he died in a 1972 plane crash.
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