Israel tries to defuse tensions in Jerusalem that prompted Jordan protest
JERUSALEM — In an attempt at diplomatic damage control, Israel’s prime minister reassured Jordan’s king Thursday that he won’t yield to increasing demands by some members of his center-right coalition to allow Jews to pray at a Muslim-run holy site in Jerusalem.
The phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II came a day after riot police clashed with Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine. Jordan, which is the custodian of the site, recalled its ambassador in protest.
Israeli-Palestinian confrontations have been escalating in Jerusalem, including near-daily clashes between stone-throwing Palestinians and Israeli riot police. Some of the attacks have turned deadly in recent weeks.
U.S. expands airstrikes in Syria to hit al-Qaida affiliate for a second time
BEIRUT — American aircraft bombed al-Qaida-linked militants in Syria on Thursday, and activists said another radical rebel group also was hit — an apparent expansion of the aerial campaign against the Islamic State group to target other extremists deemed a threat to the West.
Initial reports indicated a French militant who the U.S. says was a top bomb-maker was hit and possibly killed in the attack.
The airstrikes near Syria’s border with Turkey marked the second time the U.S. has targeted the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s Syrian franchise and a major player in the fight against President Bashar Assad.
Missiles also struck a compound of Ahrar al-Sham, one of the most prominent brigades fighting Assad in the country’s 3½-year civil war, activists and rebels said. It was the first time a group other than the Islamic State or Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate was bombed by the U.S. since its operation began in September.
Man accused of killing girlfriend, posting online photos waives extradition
PORTLAND, Ore. — A man accused of killing his live-in girlfriend and posting photos of her lifeless body online will be returned to Washington state after he surrendered to an officer in neighboring Oregon and waived extradition.
David Kalac, 33, was arrested Wednesday night nearly 200 miles from the crime scene after a daylong manhunt.
He was being held on $2 million bail in Portland on a second-degree murder charge. He waived extradition Thursday and will be returned to Port Orchard, Washington, west of Seattle, sometime later Thursday or Friday, said Lt. Steve Alexander of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office in Portland.
Kalac is accused of killing Amber Lynn Coplin, 30, after an argument in their Port Orchard apartment.
He then posted photographs of her bloody, bruised body and commented about the killing online, said Scott Wilson, a sheriff’s deputy in Kitsap County, Washington. The images appeared on 4chan, an online bulletin board where hundreds of private pictures of nude celebrities appeared earlier this year.
Court upholds 4 states’ anti-gay marriage laws, High Court review likely
CINCINNATI — A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld anti-gay marriage laws in four states, breaking ranks with other courts that have considered the issue and setting up the prospect of Supreme Court review.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that heard arguments on gay marriage bans or restrictions in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee on Aug. 6 split 2-1, with Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton writing the majority opinion. The ruling creates a divide among federal appeals courts, increasing the likelihood the U.S. Supreme Court will now take up the issue.
The ruling concluded that states have the right to set rules for marriage and that such change as expanding a definition of marriage that dates “back to the earliest days of human history” is better done through political processes.
The president of pro-gay marriage group Freedom to Marry, Evan Wolfson, blasted the ruling as “on the wrong side of history.”
By wire sources
