A federal appeals court has upheld a US Air Force veteran's conviction on terrorism charges for trying to join the Islamic State group and die a martyr.
But the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday said Tairod Pugh should be resentenced so a judge can explain why he gave him the maximum 35-year prison sentence.
Pugh, of Neptune, New Jersey, drew the first verdict of over 70 cases the US brought against Americans suspected of supporting the militant group.
He was convicted in 2016 after a Brooklyn federal court trial.
Prosecutors said Pugh sought a route into Syria to join the Islamic State group when he was stopped at a Turkish airport in 2015.
He was in the Air Force from 1986 to 1990.

Air Force veteran convicted in terror case to be resentenced

PTI Automatic

Visiting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte held talks Thursday with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in which the Southeast Asian leader was expected to discuss a ruling on the disputed South China Sea.
The 2016 Hague arbitration ruling mostly invalidated China's claim to virtually the entire South China Sea and found that it violated the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The row over the waters  a major global shipping route thought to be rich in oil and gas reserves  has for years marred China's relationship with the Philippines and other neighboring countries with rival territorial claims. Beijing has transformed a string of disputed reefs into missile-protected island bases.
Duterte, however, has largely avoided the subject in favor of seeking warmer ties with Beijing. Philippine nationalists and left-wing groups have criticized the president for not demanding Chinese compliance with the arbitration ruling, which came the same year Duterte took office.
Philippine ...

Duterte in China amid expectation he'll raise sea disputes

As fires raged in parts of the Amazon, Mydje Kayapo sat in a small boat looking out over the Curua River in the Bau indigenous reserve.
The smell of smoke filled the air, and Kayapo was worried.
"The fire is coming closer and closer to our reserve," he told a visiting news team from The Associated Press.
"Now it is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away."
Kayapo, one of the Bau people's leaders, helps organise a village watch group to protect the community's lands from encroaching flames as well as illegal loggers, miners and others seeking to exploit the area.
With fires spreading quickly to wide swaths of indigenous territories in recent weeks, his task has grown more critical.
So far in 2019, Brazil reported 83,000 fires, a 77 per cent increase from the same period last year.
Many of those were set in already deforested areas by people clearing land for cultivation or pasture.
With over 98 per cent of Brazil's indigenous lands within the Amazon, the threat to groups like Kayapo's are .

Brazilian indigenous speak out as Amazon fires rage

More than 200 people have rallied in Nepal's capital to protest government plans to cut down about 2,000 trees to widen a key road that circles the city.
The protesters held signs Thursday urging the government to stop the plan to cut down the trees on the outer edge of Kathmandu.
The 27-kilometer (17-mile) Ring Road encircles the city and is a key road network.
When the government widened half of the road earlier this year, thousands of trees were believed to have been cut down.
The second phase of the expansion covering the remaining half is expected to begin soon and protesters say they are determined to block that process.

Protest in Nepal against plan to cut trees to widen road

Oil and gas companies would face looser controls on emissions of potent climate-changing methane gas under a proposal expected from the Trump administration as soon as Thursday, oil industry and environmental groups say.
The government's plan would ease requirements on oil and gas sites to monitor for methane leaks and plug them.
The Environmental Protection Agency's move would be the latest in a series by the administration easing Obama-era emissions controls on the oil, gas and coal industries, including from methane leaks.
The oil and gas industry is the nation's primary source of methane emissions, according to the EPA, accounting for nearly one-third in 2016.
Methane is a component of natural gas that's frequently wasted through leaks or intentional releases during drilling operations.
The gas is considered a more potent contributor to climate change than carbon dioxide, although it occurs in smaller volumes.
A study by the Environmental Defense Fund , an advocacy group, ...

New rollback for climate-changing releases from oilfields

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is gambling his future on the audacious proposition that he can blunt an effort to halt his Brexit plan by simply suspending "the mother of all parliaments" for key weeks ahead of the October 31 departure date.
If Parliament isn't in session, it can't conduct official business and won't be able to take concerted action to prevent him from pushing through a "no-deal" Brexit that would abruptly sever ties between Britain and the European Union if he is unable to reach a new deal by that date.
Johnson knew full well that asking Queen Elizabeth II to suspend Parliament would provoke howls that he is masterminding an anti-democratic coup.
But if he is able to make good on his frequent vow to leave the EU on October 31, Johnson stands to be remembered as the leader who made the results of the 2016 Brexit referendum a reality.
"If it works, many will say that it was a brilliant piece of political theater and leadership," said Anthony Seldon, a historian ..

UK's Johnson is gambling his future on suspending Parliament

Germany is making it easier for descendants of those persecuted by the Nazis to regain German citizenship, which could help some Britons seeking European Union passports post-Brexit.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Thursday he's revised legislation to open new categories of eligibility, such as for descendants of women who were forced to emigrate from Germany and lost their citizenships through marriages with non-German men before April 1, 1953.
Seehofer says many descendants from such marriages living in Britain who applied for German citizenship after the 2016 Brexit referendum have been rejected, but will now be able to get approval.
A German passport will give them the right to live and work in Germany and the European Union if Britain leaves the EU later this year.

Germany eases nationality law for offspring of Nazi victims

Europe's Brexit drama is hurtling toward a new climax at the wrong time for the region's economy, threatening to sow chaos for businesses just as a large part of the continent is sliding toward recession.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's move to suspend Parliament for weeks ahead of the October 31 Brexit deadline means lawmakers will have little time to pass laws to keep the country from crashing out of the European Union without a deal.
A disorderly divorce is a worst-case scenario that both sides have been trying to avoid since the Brexit vote three years ago - and many experts now see it as a likely outcome.
Economists describe a nightmarish setting for companies: new tariffs overnight on trade between Britain and the other 27 EU countries, border checks for people and commerce, the sudden loss of business licenses, and countless other regulatory problems.
This all would play out at a time when the European economy is already taking a mighty hit from uncertainty over the ...

Brexit escalation raises alarm for ailing European economy

The Brazilian government has banned most legal fires for land-clearing for 60 days in an attempt to stop the burning that has devastated parts of the Amazon region.
The official decree prohibiting the fires was published Thursday following international criticism of President Jair Bolsonaro's handling of the environmental crisis.
The period of the new ban coincides with the dry season, when most fires are usually set.
Brazil's forest code allows farmers and others to set some fires as long as they have licenses from environmental authorities.
This year, there was a sharp increase in nationwide fires, raising concerns that people were emboldened to burn more after Bolsonaro said rainforest protections were blocking economic development.
Bolsonaro suggested environmental groups were setting illegal fires to try to destabilize his government.

Brazil bans most burning for 60 days to curb Amazon fires

A tornado has swept through Hainan island in southern China, killing eight people and injuring two others.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the tornado struck Nada town in Danzhou city early Thursday morning.
State broadcaster CCTV said dormitories for workers collapsed at two construction sites, killing eight people. One person was seriously injured and another slightly hurt. Both were sent to a hospital.
Xinhua photos show utility poles and trees that were blown down and heavily damaged homes.
A tornado in northeastern Liaoning province killed six and injured 190 people last month. A 2016 tornado and accompanying hailstorm killed 98 people in eastern China.

Tornado kills 8 on China's Hainan island

A Yemeni commander says airstrikes have hit government forces heading to the southern port city of Aden to fight separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates, killing at least 30 troops.
Col. Mohamed al-Oban, a commander of the special forces in Abyan province, says the troops were headed toward Aden on Thursday when the airstrikes took place.  He didn't say who was behind the strikes, saying only the planes were from the Saudi-led coalition.
Officials in the UAE, which is also part of the coalition that has been fighting Yemen's Houthi rebels since 2015, declined to immediately comment.
The attack comes a day after government forces pushed into Aden to try and retake the city from UAE-backed southern separatists, their ostensible allies in the coalition against the Houthis.

Yemen colonel: Airstrikes kill at least 30 troops near Aden

Police say protesters in Indonesia's restive Papua province have set fire to an indigenous assembly building.
National police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo says thousands of protesters torched the building on Thursday in Abepura town. They rallied against racism and called for independence.
Videos posted by residents and circulated online show demonstrators, including students in yellow jackets, chanting "Freedom Papua" and holding banners demanding a referendum for independence. Many in the crowd painted their faces with the separatist Morning Star flag.
Prasetyo could not confirm local media reports that protesters also set fire to several other buildings. The government has blocked telecommunication and internet access in the region since last week amid spreading violent protests.

Protesters burn local assembly building in Papua

A Chinese Australian writer detained in Beijing on suspicion of espionage since January has urged Australia to maintain diplomatic pressure for his release.
Yang Hengjun said in a statement released by a Sydney-based friend on Thursday that he was "extremely grateful" to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Foreign Minister Marise Payne, other Australian lawmakers and diplomats "for their help."
"I implore the prime minister to help me go home as soon as possible," Yang, 54, said in the statement provided to The Associated Press by Feng Chongyi, an academic who was detained in China for two weeks in 2017 while researching human rights lawyers.
Yang was taken into custody upon arriving in southern China's Guangzhou from New York on Jan. 19 with his wife, Yuan Xiaoliang, and his 14-year-old stepdaughter.
The Beijing branch of China's National Security Bureau arrested Yang last week on "suspicion of espionage," China's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
Payne has made multiple representations on ..

Detained writer urges Australia to help free him from China

The Archbishop of Canterbury emphasized the need for Christian unity on Thursday as he paid tribute to the victims of the Easter Sunday bomb attacks at a Roman Catholic church in Sri Lanka.
The figurehead of the Church of England, Justin Welby visited St. Sebastian's Church in the seaside town of Negombo soon after he arrived on a three-day visit to Sri Lanka.
More than 100 people died in the church in Negombo, known as "The Little Rome" for it dense Catholic population.
A total of 263 people were killed when seven suicide bombers from a local Muslim group attacked three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, in the worst violence by the Islamic State group-linked militants in South Asia.
"When they come to kill us do they ask if we are Christians or Pentecost or Presbyterian or Catholic? They ask only if we are Christian," Welby said in his message, quoting a sermon by Pope Francis' personal preacher delivered to the queen of England years ago.
"So when on Easter morning I ...

Archbishop of Canterbury mourns victims of Sri Lanka attacks

Morocco's official MAP news agency says that seven people watching a local soccer match in a southern village have died in a flash flood that swept across the football field.
The flood on Wednesday forced spectators and others at the match in Tizert, in the Taroudant region, to seek shelter on nearby roofs.
MAP reported Thursday that a 17-year-old and six adults were killed, and an elderly man was injured.
An official investigation has been opened.
Morocco's national weather service had warned of risks of bad weather in several regions of the country.

7 soccer fans die in flash flood at Morocco match

Firefighters in Norway are warning against recharging electric scooters indoors after a battery started a fire that tore through an apartment south of Oslo.
Hans-Otto Schjerven, head of the Vestfold Fire Department, says rechargeable lithium batteries can cause "fires that are difficult to extinguish and the batteries emit fire that quickly spreads."
After the blaze Wednesday evening, he says such batteries can be "capricious" and urged people to avoid recharging them indoors.
Schjerven says onFacebookthat although firefighters were quickly at the scene, one apartment was wrecked by the fire and three adjacent dwellings suffered smoke damage, forcing the tenants to spend the night elsewhere.
Nobody was injured in the fire. Details of the scooter and its battery were not released.

Recharging electric scooter sparks blaze in Norway apartment

A defense lawyer says a former Australian spy charged with conspiring to reveal classified information about an allegation that Australia bugged East Timor's government during negotiations over the sharing of billions of dollars in oil and gas has been denied legal aid and might not be able to adequately fund his case.
The charge against the spy was discussed in a Canberra court on the eve of the prime minister flying to East Timor on Friday to begin a new revenue-sharing agreement.
The spy's allegations that Australia bugged East Timorese Cabinet rooms in Dili in 2004 during treaty negotiations led to a 2006 treaty being scrapped.
The spy's lawyer Haydn Carmichael told a magistrate on Thursday he and other lawyers were representing their client for free.

Australian spy charged with bugging leak denied legal aid

Edson lvarez, the defender Ajax bought to replace departed captain Matthijs de Ligt, scored the decisive goal Wednesday to give the Dutch team a place in the Champions League group stage.
Alvarez, a 21-year-old Mexico international, guided a 43rd-minute header into APOEL's net to open the scoring in a 2-0 win in the second leg of their playoff.
Ajax's new captain, playmaker Dusan Tadic, struck with a powerful shot in the 80th to complete the 2-0 aggregate victory for last season's semifinalist.
Alvarez cost Ajax a reported USD 17 million from Mexican club America last month, helping replace 20-year-old De Ligt who joined Juventus in a 75-million euro ($85-million) off-season deal.
Club Brugge and Slavia Prague also advanced to the Champions League draw with home wins on Wednesday. Brugge beat LASK Linz 2-1 for a 3-1 aggregate win, and Slavia's second 1-0 win over CFR Club made it 2-0 on aggregate. The losing play-off teams will enter the 48-team Europa League group stage, which is ...

Ajax, Brugge, Slavia Prague advance to the Champions League

Ajax has completed the 32-team Champions League line-up that sees Liverpool spearhead another English challenge in the group-stage draw on Thursday.
After all-English finals in both UEFA club competitions last season, defending champion Liverpool, Premier League title holder Manchester City and Europa League winner Chelsea are all in the pot of eight top-seeded teams.
Runner-up Tottenham is joined in the pot of second-seeded teams by Ajax, its semi-final opponent last season which advanced from the playoff round on Wednesday.
England seeks to lift European soccer's most iconic trophy for the 14th time. Spain has a record 18 titles, though those were won by just two clubs  13 for Real Madrid, five for Barcelona.
Five different English clubs have won the competition which kicked off 64 years ago. A familiar group of national champions from Europe's top leagues completes the top-seeded pot: Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and, back after a three-year gap, Zenit ...

Liverpool leads 32-team Champions League draw

A Trump administration program forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico has evolved into a sweeping rejection of all forms of migrants, with both countries quietly working to keep people out of the US despite threats to the migrants' safety.
The results serve the goals of both governments, which have targeted unauthorized migration at the behest of President Donald Trump, who threatened Mexico with potentially crippling tariffs earlier this year to force action.
Some people sent to wait in the Mexican border cities of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros said they never requested asylum, including Wilfredo Alvarez, a laborer from Honduras.
He crossed the Rio Grande without permission to look for work to support his seven children and was unexpectedly put into the program. He was sent back to Mexico with a future court date.
"We thought that if they caught us, they would deport us to our country, but it was not that way," Alvarez said.
"They threw us away here to Mexico, but we are not from here 

US, Mexico widen asylum crackdown to push back all migrants

US health officials on Wednesday tried to reassure patients that they face very low risks from ongoing contamination problems with widely prescribed blood pressure drugs.
Drugmakers have issued more than 50 recalls since last July linked to low levels of a probable cancer-causing chemical found in generic drugs taken by millions of Americans.
The contamination underscores the Food and Drug Administration's struggle to police an industry that increasingly relies on overseas manufacturing plants in China and India.
On Wednesday, an FDA official said the actual risk to patients from the tainted medications is likely lower than originally stated.
The FDA said last year that if 8,000 patients took the maximum dose of the drugs for four years, the contamination issue could cause one extra case of cancer over their lifetimes.
The agency now says that the actual risk to patients is likely much lower than this "worst case scenario." That's because most patients likely "received much smaller ...

AP

AP

Page 1441 - Ap/pti