Nation & World Glance
Russia fires on Ukrainian vessels in Black Sea; 2 wounded
MOSCOW — Russia’s coast guard opened fire on and seized three of Ukraine’s vessels Sunday, wounding two crew members, after a tense standoff in the Black Sea near the Crimean Peninsula, the Ukrainian navy said.
Russia blamed Ukraine for provoking the incident, which sharply escalated tensions that have been growing between the two countries since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and it has worked steadily to bolster its zone of control around the peninsula.
Earlier in the day, Russia and Ukraine traded accusations over a separate incident involving the same vessels, prompting Moscow to block passage through the narrow Kerch Strait, which separates the peninsula from the Russian mainland.
The Ukrainian navy said two of its gunboats were struck and Russian crews boarded and seized them and an accompanying tugboat.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB and which oversees the coast guard, said there was “irrefutable evidence that Kiev prepared and orchestrated provocations ... in the Black Sea. These materials will soon be made public.”
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Sunday rejected a last-minute bid by former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos to delay his two-week prison term and ordered him to surrender Monday as scheduled.
Papadopoulos sought the delay until an appeals court had ruled in a separate case challenging the constitutionality of special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment.
But in an order Sunday, U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss said Papadopoulos had waited too long to contest his sentence after it was handed down in September. Moss noted that Papadopoulos had agreed not to appeal in most circumstances as part of his plea agreement and the judge said the challenge to Mueller’s appointment was unlikely to be successful in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Four different federal judges have upheld Mueller’s appointment as proper.
“The prospect that the D.C. Circuit will reach a contrary conclusion is remote,” Moss wrote.
Tweeting in response Sunday, Papadopoulos said he looked forward to telling the full story behind his case.
Hundreds of flights canceled as Midwest braces for snowstorm
CHICAGO — A winter storm blanketed much of the central Midwest with snow on Sunday at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, bringing blizzard-like conditions that grounded hundreds of flights and forced the closure of major highways on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
“It’s going to be messy,” said Todd Kluber, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service who is based in suburban Chicago.
With much of the central Plains and Great Lakes region under blizzard or winter storm warnings, around 1,200 flights headed to or from the U.S. had been canceled as of 6 p.m. Sunday, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.
Most were supposed to be routed through Chicago or Kansas City — areas forecast to be hit hard by the storm.
Strong winds and snow created blizzard conditions across much of Nebraska and parts of Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. The National Weather Service was warning those conditions would make travel difficult in places.
“Thank you President T”: Trump tweets as holiday break ends
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump congratulated himself for falling oil prices. He chided the Federal Reserve over interest rates. He claimed Central American countries are trying to dump “certain people” into the United States.
Trump’s Florida holiday stay was ending Sunday with a visit to his golf club for the fifth day in a row. His tweeting took no break.
The president patted himself on the back for a dip in petroleum prices, writing “thank you President T.” He also admonished the U.S. central bank over the cost of borrowing money.
In a separate tweet, he called on Mexico to stop caravans of Central American migrants from trying to reach the U.S. border.
“Would be very SMART if Mexico would stop the Caravans long before they get to our Southern Border, or if originating countries would not let them form,” he wrote, claiming, without evidence, that “it is a way they get certain people out of their country and dump in U.S. No longer.”
State trooper who stopped speeding van helps deliver baby
RALEIGH, N.C. — Here’s one way to get out of speeding ticket: A North Carolina state trooper helped deliver a baby on the side of the road after pulling over a speeding van on the highway.
WRAL-TV reports that State Highway Patrol Sgt. Brian Maynard pulled over a van going 85 mph late Saturday. The couple in the van, Jimmy and Laura Baker, were headed to the hospital so she could give birth, but the baby had other plans and started coming before they could get there.
Maynard helped deliver the baby at roadside, calling the experience both “scary” and “rewarding.”
Baby Halyn was later taken to a hospital. Jimmy Baker says his wife and their newborn are both doing well.