More money sought for tribal schools
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration says it will ask Congress for $1 billion next year to run schools for Native American children – including millions in new money to help fix crumbling buildings.
The request – $150 million more than in this year’s budget – sets aside $58 million in new funding for school construction and $18 million in new funding for repairs. It also seeks $33 million to expand the schools’ Internet capabilities.
Scouts, man settle sex-abuse case
LOS ANGELES – The Boy Scouts of America settled a sex abuse case Thursday involving a 20-year-old California man who was molested by a Scout volunteer in 2007 a decision that will keep years’ worth of “perversion” files detailing sex-abuse allegations secret from the public.
The announcement of the settlement in the Santa Barbara case came after three days of trial. The terms were confidential at the Boy Scouts’ request, said Tim Hale, the plaintiff’s attorney.
Hale had won the right to use the “perversion” files to try to show the Boy Scouts were negligent by not properly training, educating and warning parents, Scouts and volunteers about sexual abuse.
France charges man linked to terrorists
PARIS – French authorities filed preliminary terrorism charges Thursday against a Frenchman extradited from Bulgaria and linked to gunmen behind deadly attacks in Paris, a judicial official said.
Fritz-Joly Joachin was arrested Jan. 1 on an unrelated warrant while trying to cross from Bulgaria into Turkey. French police say that Joachin, 29, was an associate of the Kouachi brothers, who killed 12 people in an attack Jan. 7 against newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Joachin was given preliminary charges of participating in an organized crime group with aims to prepare a terrorist act, and seeking to join extremist fighters in Syria, the official said. He arrived in France on Thursday from Bulgaria.
Families plead for return of hostages
AMMAN, Jordan – The father of a Jordanian fighter pilot and the wife of a Japanese journalist held by the Islamic State group pleaded for their loved ones’ lives after a possible prisoner swap wasn’t carried out by a deadline of sunset Thursday.
The extremists had demanded that Jordan release a female al-Qaida prisoner from death row, and they purportedly threatened in an audio message to kill the airman if she was not freed by the deadline.
After sundown in the Middle East, there was no word on the fate of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh and journalist Kenji Goto.
“We received no assurances from anyone that he is alive,” Jawdat al-Kaseasbeh, a brother of the pilot, told The Associated Press.
Associated Press
