Army May Pull Back for Hostage Negotiations
- Share via
Colombia said it was prepared to withdraw troops from around a small mountain town to facilitate negotiations with Marxist rebels for the freedom of 63 hostages.
President Alvaro Uribe said he accepted the proposal by France, Spain and Switzerland to break a deadlock with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia on starting talks to discuss the release of rebels in return for the hostages, who include a former presidential candidate and three Americans. There was no word on whether the rebels had accepted the plan.
Uribe, who has taken a hard line against rebels, acknowledged that he was making a concession to ease “the pain ... of so many Colombian families whose relatives have been kidnapped.”
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
The latest effort is coming from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. They just announced a $3 million program in conjunction with some nonprofits groups to test and clean the soil at homes still standing in the areas impacted by the Eaton Fire.
California once bet big on offshore wind to help power its clean-energy future, but the Trump administration is now paying developers billions to walk away from their projects. As California’s remaining offshore-wind leases hang in the balance, the state is fighting back in court.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
