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White House Counsel to the President Donald McGahn’s letter to Devin Nunes of the House Intelligence Committee declining to declassify a memo written by minority party members of the committee.
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The detention in northern Syria by U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters of two notorious British jihadists, the remaining members of a militant quartet that tortured and beheaded Western hostages, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, is being greeted with pleas by former Western captives of the terror group that they face trial.

Nicolas Henin, a French reporter held for 10 months by the British gang, has told British and U.S. broadcasters that he wants the militants to face justice for their crimes somewhere he and other former hostages and the relatives of murdered victims will be able to attend and testify. 

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, the last two members of the British quartet that Western hostages dubbed “The Beatles,” were captured last month by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in eastern Syria. News of their detention was reported Thursday by The New York Times. U.S. officials have confirmed their capture and say they were identified from their fingerprints and biometric data.

“This is the beginning of a process that will bring them eventually, hopefully, to a trial. Justice is just what I want,” Henin said. “What I want is a trial and a trial potentially that I can attend, so rather, a trial in London rather than one in Kobani in northern Syria.”

He rejected the idea of them facing a U.S. military commission in Guantanamo, saying that would, in effect, be a “denial of justice.”

“Guantanamo was opened 16 years ago. There hasn’t been a single trial there,” he said. 

Rights campaigners are urging the U.S. government not to transfer the men to Guantanamo. “They should prosecute them in U.S. federal court, not send them to Guantanamo,” said Laura Pitter of the Human Rights Watch.

“These men are accused of committing serious crimes, including torture, murder and other offenses. If they end up in [formal] U.S. custody, the U.S. should not jeopardize their prosecutions by sending them to the dysfunctional military commissions at Guantanamo where important cases involving serious crimes have languished for years.”

According to European captives who were freed by the Islamic State terror group in return for ransoms, the group of four British militants put their Western captives, especially the British and Americans, through rounds of excruciating suffering, routinely beating and waterboarding them and staging mock executions.

Thanks to IS propaganda videos, the gang quickly acquired a singular place in this century’s annals of terrorism. James Foley, the first of the Western hostages to be beheaded, was earmarked for the worst treatment of all, possibly because he had a brother who had served with U.S. forces in Afghanistan. 

“You could see the scars on his [Foley’s] ankles,” Jejoen Bontinck, a 19-year-old Belgian and convert to Islam, said in interviews later. Bontinck, a jihadist recruit who fell afoul of IS, shared a prison cell with Foley in 2013. “He told me how they had chained his feet to a bar and then hung the bar so that he was upside down from the ceiling. Then they left him there.”

Foley’s mother, Diane, told the BBC on Friday that the crimes of the British jihadists “are beyond imagination.” She says they need to face life in prison. “It doesn’t bring James back, but hopefully it protects others from this kind of crime.”

An international manhunt was launched by Western governments for the fighters in 2014 when IS released a video of Foley’s execution at the hands of an masked English-accented militant, who called himself “John” and was the leader of the gang. He was nicknamed by the British media “Jihadi John” and was later identified as Mohamed Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait, but was raised like the rest of the gang in west London.

He was killed in a drone strike in November 2015.

Another member of the gang, Aine Davis, was sentenced last year in Turkey to a seven-and-a-half-year prison term. He was charged with membership in a terrorist organization, but a weightier charge of preparing acts of terrorism, which carried the possibility of a longer sentence, was dropped by Turkish prosecutors for lack of sufficient evidence. 

U.S. officials say El Shafee Elsheikh, who fled from Sudan in the 1990s but grew up in London, and Alexanda Amon Kotey, whose ethnic background is Greek Cypriot, are providing information on the remaining IS structure and leaders. But it is unclear who has been interrogating them and whether British intelligence officers also have had access to the pair alongside U.S. counterterror officials. 

Family and friends of British photojournalist John Cantlie, a friend of Foley, who remains missing, say they hope the captured jihadists provide information about his whereabouts. Cantlie was used by IS to front propaganda videos.

The British IS gang also was responsible for the murder of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig, according to freed captives, as well as David Haines, a British aid worker, and Alan Henning, a British taxi driver from Salford outside Manchester, who had volunteered to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria.  

Elsheikh traveled to Syria in 2012 and joined al-Qaida in Syria before switching to IS. U.S. officials say he took pleasure in staging crucifixions and waterboarding while an IS jailer. The two captured jihadists knew Emwazi in the British capital, where all three attended Al-Manaar mosque in west London. 

Officials on both sides of the Atlantic say the fate remains unclear of the captured jihadists, who may be considered non-state combatants. They could be handed over to the U.S. Justice Department to stand trial in the U.S. or be transferred to the U.S. military authorities to face a tribunal at Guantanamo Bay detention center. U.S. President Donald Trump recently signed an order to keep the detention center. 

Another option is for their fate to be left to the Kurdish authorities in northern Syria, but that option is being opposed by freed captives. French officials have raised the possibility of the pair standing trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. However, the U.S. is not a signatory to the court. 

The French position was echoed Friday by a British defense minister, Tobias Elwood, who said the two jihadists shouldn’t be tried before a U.S. military tribunal or sent back to Britain, but should face justice at The Hague in order to uphold the rule of law.

Relatives of other alleged victims have echoed Henin’s call for a trial.

Bethany Haines, the daughter of David Haines, posted on Facebook: “It’s brilliant that these evil people have been caught. The families will now have people to hold account for their loved ones death.”

She added, “No punishment is enough for these barbarians and in my opinion they should be sentenced to a slow painful death.”
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President Donald Trump plans to nominate deputy White House chief of staff Jim Carroll to serve as the administration’s next drug czar.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says in a statement the White House has “full confidence” in Carroll to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

It’s unclear whether he has any public health experience.

Trump has often called fighting the opioid epidemic a top priority of his administration. But critics say he hasn’t done enough to tackle the issue.

Carroll served as Washington counsel to the Ford Motor Company before joining the administration, and also worked for the Justice and Treasury departments.
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The sister of the North Korean leader Friday became the first member of her family to visit South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War as part of a high-level delegation attending the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Arriving on her brother Kim Jong Un’s white private jet for a three-day visit, Kim Yo Jong and the country’s 90-year-old nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam are scheduled to meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Saturday in a luncheon at Seoul’s presidential palace. 

Dressed in a black coat and hit with a barrage of camera flashes, Kim Yo Jong smiled as a group of South Korean officials, including Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, greeted her and the rest of the delegates at a meeting room at Incheon International Airport. 

The North Koreans — also including Choe Hwi, chairman of the country’s National Sports Guidance Committee, and Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the North’s agency that deals with inter-Korean affairs — then boarded a high-speed train to Pyeongchang. 

Moon has been trying to use the Pyeonghang Games as an opportunity to revive meaningful communication with North Korea after a period of diplomatic stalemate and eventually pull it into talks over resolving the international standoff over its nuclear program. 

Skeptics say North Korea, which is unlikely to give up its nukes under any deal, is just using the Olympics to poke holes at the U.S.-led international sanctions against the country and buy more time to further advance its strategic weaponry. The North Korean delegation’s arrival came a day after Kim Jong Un presided over a massive military parade in Pyongyang that was highlighted by the country’s developmental intercontinental ballistic missiles, which in three flight tests last year showed potential ability to reach deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.

Diplomacy

South Korean media have been speculating about whether Kim will send a personal message to Moon through his sister and, if so, whether it would include a proposal for a summit between the two leaders.

As first vice director of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, Kim Yo Jong has been an increasingly prominent figure in North Korea’s leadership and is considered one of the few people who has earned her brother’s absolute trust.

Analysts say the North’s decision her to the Olympics shows an ambition to break out from diplomatic isolation and pressure by improving relations with the South, which it could use as a bridge for approaching the United States.

By sending a youthful, photogenic person who will undoubtedly attract international attention during the games, North Korea may also be trying to craft a fresher public image and defang any U.S. effort to use the Olympics to highlight the North’s brutal human rights record.

Schedule not set

South Korea has yet to announce a confirmed schedule for the North Korean delegates aside of their participation in the opening ceremony and Saturday’s luncheon with Moon.

There’s a possibility that they would attend the debut of the first-ever inter-Korean Olympic team at the women’s ice hockey tournament on Saturday, hours after their meeting with Moon. They could also see a performance by a visiting North Korean art troupe in Seoul on Sunday before heading back to Pyongyang.

The North has sent nearly 500 people to the Pyeongchang Games, including officials, athletes, artists and also a 230-member state-trained cheering group after the war-separated rivals agreed to a series of conciliatory gestures for the games.
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The U.S. Senate, early Friday morning, voted 71-28 to approve a combined bill to fund the government through March 23 and a two-year federal budget.

The legislation now goes to the U.S. House, where its future is less certain. A vote in the House is expected Friday morning. 

The U.S. government shut down at midnight Thursday after Congress missed a deadline to renew the federal government’s funding. The shutdown marks the second partial federal shutdown in less than a month.

Earlier, a single Republican senator held up a bipartisan bill to keep the U.S. government open hours before federal funds were set to expire.

Rand Paul of Kentucky objected to the Senate proceeding to vote on a two-year budget deal that would boost military and domestic spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, saying it would explode America’s rising federal deficit and add to the nation’s more than $20 trillion national debt.

“I can’t, in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way,” Paul said in a fiery and lengthy floor speech that consumed dwindling time that Congress had to avert a halt of nonessential federal operations. “We have a 700-page bill that no one has read that was printed at midnight. … Nothing will be reformed, the waste will continue.”

Paul’s objection drew an angry response from a fellow Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who argued America’s military desperately needs additional funds after years of budget caps that constrained both the Pentagon and domestic programs.

“Debt and deficits are no excuse to leave the war fighter hanging,” Graham said. “Whatever it is to keep our military going, I’ll do it.”

​Senate rules

Under Senate rules, any member can speak for as long as he or she desires, unless three-fifths of the body votes to end debate. Any senator also can object to a vote, causing lengthy procedural delays.

Paul’s action threw into chaos a carefully choreographed script for how the day’s legislative business was to be conducted, with swift Senate and House votes so that the budget deal could be sent to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature with time to spare before midnight in Washington, when federal spending authority ends absent an extension.

Senate procedures would allow a vote on the budget deal to go forward at 1 a.m. Friday EST, with or without Paul’s consent. But the government shutdown would have begun by that time.

“We can provide certainty to the thousands and thousands of people who expect government to be open, or we can play this game [with a vote delay] until 1 a.m.,” Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said. “I, for one, think we should do it right now.”

Hours before the Thursday night deadline, Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, released a statement urging Republican leaders “to bring to the floor a one-day funding bill to keep the government open. Given that the Senate still has not passed” its agreement.

​Bipartisan support 

Negotiated between the Senate’s Republican and Democratic leaders, the two-year budget bill appeared to have ample bipartisan support for passage in both houses of Congress.

“This agreement ensures that our armed forces will finally have the resources they need,” Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said. “In addition, the funding bill will provide support for our veterans, those who have worn the uniform as well as their families, and it will clear the way for new investment in our nation’s infrastructure.”

“It’s a good deal,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said. “And it’s a strong signal that we can break the gridlock that has overwhelmed this body and work together for the good of the country.”

White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah told reporters at the daily briefing that, “We do support the two-year spending bill. It lifts the caps on defense spending, which is something the secretary of defense and the president’s generals have told him they need to ensure that we rebuild our military and protect our national security.”

The accord drew opposition from opposite extremes of Congress’ ideological spectrum, but not in sufficient numbers to threaten passage. Some conservative Republicans blasted the added spending as a surrender to fiscal insanity.

Some progressive Democrats, meanwhile, protested the agreement’s omission of any measure to end the threat of deportation for hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants brought to America as children.

“They live and work here. They share our nation with us. Right now, we are being called upon to protect them from deportation and we must answer that call,” Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois said. “Vote against this budget.”

Partial shutdown in January

Democrats blocked a stopgap spending bill in January, triggering a three-day partial federal government shutdown, in part to protest Congress’ inaction on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama administration program that Trump rescinded last year and is set to expire March 5.

Bipartisan negotiations have yet to reach a deal on an overhaul of America’s immigration laws. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly promised to start Senate floor debate on immigration reform, including a fix for DACA recipients, after spending issues are resolved.

House Speaker Paul Ryan gave a similar assurance on Thursday, saying, “To anyone who doubts my commitment to solve this problem and bring up a DACA and immigration reform bill, do not. We will bring a solution to the floor, one that the president will sign.”
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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said in a meeting Thursday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in that Washington would “bring maximum pressure to bear on North Korea” until it abandons its nuclear weapons program.

Meeting with Moon at the Blue House in Seoul, Pence reaffirmed to longtime ally South Korea the U.S. commitment to economically and diplomatically isolate North Korea in order to achieve the goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.

Early Friday, Pence traveled to the South Korean Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, to visit a memorial for the South Korean warship Cheonan, which was sunk by an explosion blamed on the North. Nearly 50 sailors aboard the Cheonan were killed.

The vice president is also scheduled to meet with some North Korean defectors while in Pyeongtaek.

Later Friday, Pence will lead a U.S. delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Moon said South Korea is viewing hosting the Olympics as a way to improve diplomatic relations with North Korea. He has referred to the games as the “Olympic Games of peace.”

‘Vigilance and resolve’ 

On Thursday, while in Japan, Pence stopped at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo, where he gave a pointed speech against North Korea.

He said the United States will act with “vigilance and resolve” in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile threats, and reiterated the Trump administration’s warning that while its seeks peace, “all options are on the table.”

About 54,000 personnel are stationed at the U.S. base. Pence toured the facility and met with Air Force Lt. Gen. Jerry Martinez, commander of U.S. Forces Japan. He also was briefed on the capabilities of the base if “diplomacy fails.”

Pence said North Korea has repeatedly responded to overtures from the world with broken promises and provocations. He highlighted his earlier announcement that the United States would continue to intensify what he called a “maximum pressure campaign” and keep it in place until North Korea abandons its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“We’re standing in a country that has literally seen ballistic missiles overfly their land twice in a single month. And they’ve seen multiple ballistic missiles land within their economic zone in the Sea of Japan,” Pence later told reporters.

“American forces, the Self-Defense Forces of Japan are ready for any eventuality. And we will continue to make it clear to all parties that the United States and our allies in this region stand ready at a moment’s notice to defend our people and defend our way of life,” he added.

​Olympics

U.S. officials have not ruled out the possibility that the vice president might meet a North Korean official at the Olympics. North Korean state media on Thursday said there was no intention on the North Korean side for such talks to take place.

Pence told reporters his team had not requested a meeting, but that if it did happen, he would continue his message that North Korea must entirely abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile efforts and will remain under pressure until it does so.

“The time has come for North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missiles ambitions, set aside this long pattern of deception and provocation, and then and only then can we begin to move forward to a peaceable outcome on the peninsula,” he said.

Among those in the delegation North Korea is sending south are Kim Yong Nam, who is the ceremonial head of North Korea’s government and Kim Yo Jong, an influential sister of leader Kim Jong Un.

Others attending as official members of the U.S. delegation are Pence’s wife, Karen Pence; Army General Vincent Brooks, commander of U.S. and United Nations forces on the peninsula; Brooks’ predecessor, retired Army General James Thurman; House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce; Chargé d’Affaires ad interim at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul Marc Knapper; and 2002 Olympic figure skating gold medal winner Sara Hughes.

Fred Warmbier, the father of Otto Warmbier, an American student who was jailed in North Korea and died last year after returning to the United States in a coma, will be Pence’s designated special guest at the opening ceremony.

The sight of Warmbier alongside Pence will serve to “remind the world of the atrocities that happen in North Korea,” according to a White House official.
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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence assured South Korea the United States will stand shoulder to shoulder with its allies to bring “maximum pressure” on North Korea to end its nuclear and ballistic missile program.

Pence arrived in South Korea on Thursday intent on countering North Korea’s Olympic charm offensive in ways that could create a rift with South Korea’s engagement efforts.

“Our resolve to stand with you is unshakable, and we will stand with the people of South Korea and our other allies in the region until we achieve this objective for the peace of your nation, of this peninsula and of the wider world,” Pence said during a joint news conference, adding that the two nations shared the objective of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

“We certainly hope to use this opportunity to the maximum, so that the Winter Olympic Games can become a venue that leads to dialogue for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as well as the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in said.

​In Japan

In comments earlier in Japan, Pence said the U.S. wants a peaceful solution to the nuclear standoff with North Korea, but is prepared to use force if necessary.

“We are ready for any eventuality. The United States of America will always seek peace. We will ever strive for a better future, but you, the instruments of American power know, and let our adversaries know, all options are on the table,” Pence told to U.S. troops.

The vice president’s emphasis on possible military action follows increased talk in Washington that the administration of President Donald Trump is planning a “bloody nose” military strike in response to the next North Korean provocation.

But in South Korea many officials and analysts discount the threat of U.S. military action against North Korea, because it would put at risk the lives of millions in South Korea and Japan from a likely counterattack.

“All this talk about pre-emptive strikes by the United States is actually part of larger campaign to apply pressure on North Korea,” said Go Myong-Hyun, a North Korea analyst with the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

Maximum pressure

After meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Wednesday, Pence said the U.S. is planning to impose “the toughest and most aggressive round of economic sanctions on North Korea ever,” to pressure the Kim Jong Un government in Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program, including accelerated efforts in the last year to develop a long range nuclear missile that can target the U.S. mainland.

On Thursday he again sounded an uncompromising tone, demanding that North Korea take unilateral action before the U.S. would agree to engage in talks to end sanctions and provide economic assistance and security guarantees.

“We will continue to intensify this maximum pressure campaign on North Korea until it abandons its nuclear and ballistic missile programs once and for all,” Pence said.

Pence will lead the American delegation at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea that begin Friday. The U.S. views North Korea’s Olympic cooperation as an attempt to improve it image and weaken international support for sanctions.

The vice president said he would counter this effort by highlighting the repressive nature of the leadership in Pyongyang. To that end he has invited the father of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died last year after being imprisoned in North Korea for 17 months, to join the Olympic delegation.

Engagement rift

However the U.S. administration’s inflexible approach to North Korea indicates a possible growing rift with the South Korean president’s engagement strategy, despite assurances to the contrary from Washington and Seoul.

“It’s clear that there is already a major split between the two. So far the United States and South Korea’s leaders have been polite about it,” said David Straub, a North Korea analyst with the Sejong Institute in South Korea.

After more than a year of accelerated North Korean ballistic missile and nuclear tests, South Korea’s President Moon helped bring about a pause in provocations by negotiating North Korea’s participation in the Olympics. He also gained U.S. support for postponing joint military exercises until after the Olympics and Paralympics end in late March.

North and South Korea agreed to field a joint women’s ice hockey team for the games and to march together under a unified flag during the opening ceremony. North Korean artists and musicians will also perform during the games at venues in the Pyeongchang region and in Seoul.

For Moon, the increased North Korean cooperation validates his support for greater engagement to peacefully resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Moon has said he wants to build upon the Olympic outreach to restart talks with the U.S. to eventually halt North Koreas’ nuclear development program in exchange for economic assistance and security guarantees.

Moon’s approach would require offering concessions, such as a further delay to military drills or increased economic engagement, for a North Korean promise to hold off further weapons tests and agree to pursue denuclearization talks.

Pence’s hard-line stance makes it unlikely that the U.S. would agree to such a deal.

“I think what the U.S. government is doing, is drawing a line in the sand and saying that contrary to South Korean government expectations, the United States is not willing to take this opportunity of the Olympics as a turning point in the current standoff between the United States and North Korea,” said Go with the Asan Institute.

North Korea is sending a high-ranking official delegation to the Olympics that will include the younger sister of leader Kim Jong Un and the North’s nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam. But Pyongyang indicated it is not interested in meeting with the Pence-led delegation.

Military parade

Also on Thursday North Korea held a relatively low key military parade in Pyongyang, the day before the Olympics are to begin. The annual parade to mark the founding of the North Korean army is usually held in April but was moved to February this year.

North Korean military parades are often seen as a provocative display of military power and ballistic missile technology that is banned under United Nations resolutions.

However official state media in North Korea did not broadcast the parade live, and international news organizations were not invited to cover this event, as they had been for past parades. The South Korean government said Thursday morning that it did not even know what time the parade would begin.

The restrictive coverage of the military parade may indicate Pyongyang wants to keep the world focused on its Olympic participation and renewed inter-Korean cooperation.

Lee Yoon-jee in Seoul contributed to this report.
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From the Black Hills of South Dakota … to the black mugs lining the shelves of the Field Museum gift shop … the world’s most popular T-Rex leaves a lasting impression.

“Millions of people come to Chicago every year just to see Sue,” said Hillary Hansen, senior project manager at the Field Museum.

Sue is the name affectionately bestowed on the Field Museum’s star attraction, the world’s largest and most complete fossilized example of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

She was named after the woman who discovered her, paleontologist Sue Hendrickson. When she discovered the dinosaur emerging from obscurity in the rock formations of South Dakota in the early 1990s, it was only the beginning of the T-rex’s long journey that included seizure by federal authorities and ultimately an auction at Sotheby’s in New York.

Chicago’s Field Museum won the bidding at that auction in 1997, spending more than $8 million to bring Sue to Chicago.

And that is where she has been for the last 18 years.

But Hansen says Sue’s popularity transcends her physical home in Chicago.

“Sue is known the world over also, because we have two casts of Sue that travel around the world, so we take Sue to other museums, as well as people coming here to take a look at Sue,” Hansen told VOA during a recent press event at the Field Museum. “Those casts of Sue have been traveling for 15 years or so, so in the aggregate, millions of people have come to know about Sue, and they didn’t even come to Chicago.”

“People that haven’t seen her have a relationship to Sue through social media, and she’s a great ambassador not only for Field Museum but natural history museums in general,” said Japp Hoogstraten, Field Museum’s director of exhibitions.

Despite that popularity, Hoogstraten says Sue always seemed dwarfed by the 21-meter-high ceiling of her home in Stanley Field Hall. “A lot of visitors come to the Field Museum to see Sue and feel that she is a little smaller than expected, the buildup is too big, because this is such a huge space.”

Hansen says the museum has received plenty of feedback about it over the years.

“We know from a lot of visitor studies that people want to see Sue in Sue’s natural environment. You really can’t do that in an environment like Stanley Field Hall where she is now.”

So for the first time since she was unveiled in 2000, Sue is moving to her new home in the museum’s Evolving Planet exhibit in the second floor galleries, which Hansen says will provide a better space to explain Sue’s story.

“We are going to be using multi-media in order to put people in the Cretaceous era where Sue lived. We’re able to take the time and space to flush out the full story of where Sue lived, how she lived, and what her daily life was like,” said Hansen.

And, as Hoogstraten explains, all of this informs what Sue actually might have looked like. “We’ve learned a lot about the science, the biomechanics of T-Rex’s by studying Sue. Her gait, her bite force, and all kinds of things. And we’ll be adding new research to the display in changing her pose slightly.”

But first comes the hard part … taking Sue apart … bone by bone.

“The way that she is mounted on the metal armature allows us to remove every bone individually, every piece of rock,” Hoogstraten told VOA. “And that will be really interesting because we haven’t de-installed significant portions of her since she was installed in 2000.”

Sue will reach her new home, in her new pose, in mid 2019, along with some new, and some other familiar pieces, according to Hansen. “We are going to be putting more specimens on display, specimens that were found with Sue when Sue was discovered back in the ’90s.”

“We keep the skull separate from the rest of the body, because it’s the main thing people want to research,” said Hoogstraten. “So even when she is reinstalled, we’ll keep the skull in a separate case for easy access.”

While Sue leaves a large space to fill in Stanley Field Hall, it’s already spoken for. A cast of the world’s largest dinosaur, the titanosaur, found in Argentina, soon will cast its gaze over future visitors to the main hall of the Field museum.

“It’s 120 feet (36.6 meters) long. Sue is 40 feet (12 meters). So three times as long,” but according to Hoogstraten, not three times as popular as Sue. Not yet.

“She’s the icon. She’s our biggest attraction.”
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U.S. military officials say coalition airstrikes in northern Syria killed about 100 pro-government fighters who were part of an attack on U.S.-backed opposition forces.

The U.S.-led coalition said the pro-government fighters carried out an “unprovoked attack against well-established Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters.”

U.S. personnel have been advising and assisting the SDF, and some were embedded with them at the time of the attack in Deir el-Zour province.

The officials said no Americans were hurt, while one SDF member was wounded in the assault that was backed by artillery, tanks and rocket-launching systems.

The attack appeared to be an attempt by the pro-government fighters to take control of areas the SDF recaptured from Islamic State militants in September, the officials added.

Syrian state media said the coalition airstrikes hit tribal fighters who were battling Islamic State and SDF forces. The reports called the strikes an “aggression” and said they killed dozens of people.

A coalition statement emphasized its mission to combat Islamic State while asserting “its non-negotiable right to act in self-defense.”

U.S. forces began airstrikes in Syria in September 2014 after the militants swept into control of large areas in the eastern part of the country as well as northern and western Iraq.

A year later, Russia joined the fighting in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

U.S. military officials said the coalition was in contact with Russia before, during and after Wednesday’s attack, and had alerted Russia to the presence of SDF forces in that area.
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