Fearing US abandonment, Kurds kept back channels wide open
WASHINGTON — When Syria’s Kurdish fighters, America’s longtime battlefield allies against the Islamic State, announced over the weekend that they were switching sides and joining up with Damascus and Moscow, it seemed like a moment of geopolitical whiplash.
But in fact, the move had been in the works for more than a year. Fearing U.S. abandonment, the Kurds opened a back channel to the Syrian government and the Russians in 2018, and those talks ramped up significantly in recent weeks, American, Kurdish and Russian officials told The Associated Press.
“We warned the Kurds that the Americans will ditch them,” Russia’s ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, told Russia’s Tass news agency on Monday.
The switch in allegiances is a stark illustration of how American foes like Russia and Syria are working steadily to fill the vacuum left by President Donald Trump’s retreat in the region. It also betrays the anxiety that U.S. allies across the globe now feel in the face of Trump’s seemingly impulsive foreign policy decisions, which often come as a surprise to allies and critics alike.
When Trump announced Oct. 6 that he was pulling American troops back from northeastern Syria, paving the way for an assault by Turkey, the Kurds knew exactly where to turn.
Fort Worth chief: ‘absolutely no excuse’ for woman’s killing
FORT WORTH, Texas — The furor Tuesday over the killing of a black woman by a white Fort Worth officer became increasingly about a gun pointed at a bedroom window. But the police chief and activists said the focus was on the wrong gun.
Officer Aaron Dean was arrested on a murder charge Monday in the slaying of Atatiana Jefferson. Police released an arrest warrant Tuesday quoting the victim’s 8-year-old nephew as saying Jefferson had pulled out a gun after hearing suspicious noises behind her house.
Black politicians and others criticized the police and the media for bringing up Jefferson’s weapon, angrily accusing the department of trying to deflect blame onto an innocent victim.
“The Fort Worth Police Department is going about the task of providing a defense for this officer,” said Lee Merritt, an attorney for the Jefferson family.
Interim Police Chief Ed Kraus himself declared there was “absolutely no excuse” for the killing and said Jefferson behaved as any Texas homeowner would have on hearing a prowler. It wasn’t clear from the warrant whether Dean even saw her weapon through the glass.
Catalan protesters, police clash for second night
BARCELONA, Spain — Violent clashes erupted for a second night in Barcelona between police and protesters angry about the conviction of a dozen Catalan separatist leaders, as Spain launched an investigation Tuesday into an activist group organizing the demonstrations.
Thousands of people held vigils near the Spanish government offices in Catalonia’s four provinces. But the gatherings turned into melees, with protesters hurling firecrackers and other objects at anti-riot officers and kicking temporary fences around the official buildings.
In Barcelona, protesters sang the Catalan anthem and shouted “The streets will always be ours” and “Independence,” while they called Spanish police “occupying forces” and urged them to leave Catalonia. Demonstrators erected improvised barricades with trash bins, fences and piles of cardboard that they set on fire.
The greatly outnumbered riot police went in with shields and batons striking protesters in their path. They hit people on the legs mostly and fired foam-type anti-riot bullets that dispersed the crowds.
There were also clashes in Girona, Lleida and Tarragona as well as smaller towns across Catalonia.
Huffman starts serving prison time in college scam
SAN FRANCISCO — “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman — aka inmate No. 77806-112 — reported Tuesday to a federal prison in California to serve a two-week sentence in a college admissions scandal that underscored the lengths some wealthy parents will go to get their children into top universities.
Huffman’s husband, actor William H. Macy, dropped her off at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, a low-security prison for women in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to TASC Group, which represents Huffman.
The prison has been described by media as “Club Fed,” making its way onto a Forbes list in 2009 of “America’s 10 Cushiest Prisons.” It has housed well-known inmates in the past, including “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss.
Once inside the prison, Huffman will share a room and open toilet with three other inmates, according to a TASC Group publicist who declined to be named in accordance with company policy. The person said the actress will be subjected to five bed checks a day while having access to a gym, library and TV room.
Sally Swarts, a spokeswoman for the prison, said she could not provide specific information on Huffman but noted that everything in the inmate handbook would apply to the actress.