MS-13 leaders face U.S. terror charges
NEW YORK -- U.S. prosecutors announced terrorism charges Thursday against top MS-13 leaders imprisoned in El Salvador, accusing them of ordering killings and other crimes by the notorious street gang from behind bars.
The directives by the 14 defendants -- members of an illicit commission known as "Ranfla Nacional" -- have resulted in a wave of violence in El Salvador, the United States and elsewhere, prosecutors said. The defendants include Borromeo Enrique Henriquez, considered the leadership's most powerful member, they said.
The charges brought in New York, part of an ongoing crackdown heavily pushed by President Donald Trump, comprise "the highest-reaching and most sweeping indictment targeting MS-13 and its command and control structure in U.S. history," acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said in a statement.
An indictment charged the defendants with multiple conspiracy counts alleging they organized drug-trafficking and extortion schemes using MS-13's members in the U.S. to raise money to support terrorist activities in El Salvador.
According to the federal indictment, Ranfla Nacional ordered an unsuccessful hit -- what it called a "green light" -- on an FBI agent detailed to El Salvador to investigate the gang. The court papers also said it used $600,000 in profits from criminal activities in the U.S. to buy machine guns, rocket launchers and other weapons for attacks on police and to finance other terrorism activities.
U.S. authorities said they are exploring ways to have the defendants brought to New York to face prosecution.
3rd suspect arrested in nurse's killing
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Authorities in Tennessee have arrested a third person in connection with the fatal shooting of a nurse on Interstate 440 last month.
Dimeneshia Carter, 21, was charged with harboring a fugitive following the arrest of her boyfriend, 28-year-old James Cowan, on a charge of criminal homicide, police said in a statement.
Cowan, 28, was apprehended Tuesday at a Nashville apartment complex. An arrest warrant was issued last week charging him in the Dec. 3 slaying of Caitlyn Kaufman, police said. Kaufman, 26, was killed as she drove to work at St. Thomas West Hospital.
Another suspect, Devaunte Lewis Hill, 21, was arrested Dec. 11 on a criminal homicide charge in connection with Kaufman's death.
No motive has been given in the shooting.
A police investigation found that Cowan and Hill know each other and a cellphone analysis puts both men in the area when Kaufman was shot, authorities said.
NASA lander's mole ends dig on Mars
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA declared the Mars digger dead Thursday after failing to burrow deep into the red planet to take its temperature.
Scientists in Germany spent two years trying to get their heat probe, dubbed the mole, to drill into the Martian crust. But the 16-inch-long device that is part of NASA's InSight lander couldn't gain enough friction in the red dirt. It was supposed to burrow 16 feet into Mars, but only was able to drill down a few feet.
After one last unsuccessful attempt to hammer itself down over the weekend with 500 strokes, the team called it quits.
"We've given it everything we've got, but Mars and our heroic mole remain incompatible," said the German Space Agency's Tilman Spohn, the lead scientist for the experiment.
The mole's design was based on Martian soil examined by previous spacecraft. That turned out nothing like the clumpy dirt encountered this time.
InSight, which landed on Mars in November 2018, recently was granted a two-year extension for scientific work, now lasting until the end of 2022.
Chinese officials hit with new sanctions
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration on Thursday imposed new sanctions on Chinese officials over Beijing's increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea.
In its waning days, the Trump administration put in place travel bans on an unspecified number of Chinese officials and their families for what it said were violations of international standards regarding the freedom of navigation in those waters. The administration also said it was adding China's state oil company, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, to a list of companies with which U.S. citizens are banned from doing business.
"The United States stands with Southeast Asian claimant states seeking to defend their sovereign rights and interests, consistent with international law," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. "We will continue to act until we see Beijing cease its coercive behavior in the South China Sea."
Since the fall of 2019, the administration has steadily pressured China over human-rights issues, trade, Taiwan and the Chinese response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In July, Pompeo announced that the U.S. would reject virtually all of China's maritime claims in the South China Sea, which are disputed by most of China's smaller neighbors.