BEIRUT - Syrian rebels captured a hydroelectric dam Monday on the Euphrates River in the country's north after days of heavy clashes, carting off boxes of ammunition from defeated regime forces in the latest in a string of recent strategic advances for opposition fighters, activists said.
Also Monday, activists said rebels and pro-government Kurdish gunmen struck a truce to end days of fighting in the town of Ras al-Ayn near the border with Turkey that opposition forces entered earlier this month.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebel fighters overran regime defenses and captured the Tishrin Dam, near the town of Manbij, before dawn Monday. Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said the dam supplies several areas of Syria with electricity.
"This is a major blow to the regime," said Abdul-Rahman by telephone, describing the dam as "strategic location" on the Euphrates, which flows from Turkey through Syria and into Iraq.
The rebels have scored a series of hard-fought strategic advances recently, perhaps even seizing the momentum in their relentless battle of topple President Bashar Assad's regime. On Sunday, they captured a regime helicopter base outside Damascus before pulling back for fear of government airstrikes.
WASHINGTON - A wide-ranging bill to give hunters and fishermen more access to public lands stalled in the Senate Monday after Republicans said it spends too much money.
Republicans supported opening lands for outdoorsmen and many other provisions in the bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, but GOP senators blocked the legislation on principle Monday evening in a mostly party-line procedural vote after Senate Budget Committee's top Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, objected to spending on conservation programs included in the bill.
The sportsmen's bill would increase land access and allow hunters to bring home as trophies 41 polar bears killed in Canada before the government started protecting polar bears as a threatened species. The legislation also would exclude ammunition and tackle from federal environmental laws that regulate lead, allow bow hunters to cross federal land where hunting isn't allowed, encourage federal land agencies to help states maintain shooting ranges, boost fish populations and protect animal habitat.
Sessions said he supported the overall bill but objected to spending on conservation programs that he said violated budget rules. Democrats argued that the bill also raised money for those provisions.
SAN FRANCISCO - Howard Kuljian and his family were out for a walk on a damp, overcast morning at Big Lagoon beach, playing fetch with their dog Fran as 10-foot surf churned the water just feet away like a washing machine.
Signs near the beach warned of "sneaker waves," the kind that suddenly roar ashore.
Kuljian tossed a stick that took the dog down to the water's edge, and in an instant, authorities said, a wave swallowed it, setting off a nightmarish scramble.
"Everything kind of snowballed from there," Coast Guard Lt. Bernie Garrigan said.
Kuljian's 16-year-old son, Gregory, ran to save the dog, only to be captured by the surging surf himself. Kuljian, 54, followed, and then his wife, Mary Scott, 57. On shore, their 18-year-old daughter, Olivia, and Gregory's girlfriend could only watch.
Both parents' bodies were later recovered, but the boy - presumed dead - is still missing.
The dog eventually made it back to shore.
News of Saturday's tragedy shocked many in the small college town of Arcata on the rough Northern California coastline about 280 miles north of San Francisco.
By late afternoon, more than 1,300 people "liked" a Facebook page set up by the teenager's friends called "Wear Green for Geddie" - using his nickname. Dozens tweeted tributes with the hash-tag #WearGreenForGeddie.