Briefs | Trump stirs new controversy by criticizing McCain war record

Republican presidential candidate, real estate mogul Donald Trump

Donald Trump blustered his way into more trouble as he criticized U.S. Sen. John McCain’s war record at a conservative forum, overshadowing fellow presidential candidates promoting their credentials to evangelical Christians. The 10 Republican hopefuls in the 2016 presidential campaign who converged Saturday on early-voting Iowa were vying for support from the more than 2,000 religious conservatives at the annual Family Leadership Summit less than seven months before the Iowa caucuses kick off the state-by-state nominating contests. Pressed on whether his recent criticism of McCain went too far, Trump went further. “He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said when the moderator described McCain as a war hero. McCain spent more than five years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp after his plane was shot down.

British Prime Minister David Cameron

UK – Cameron signals support for airstrikes on IS in Syria

Prime Minister David Cameron has declared that Britain needs to take a greater role in destroying the Islamic State group in Syria — his most direct signal to date that he will seek to expand his country’s role in supporting the United States and its allies. In remarks made to NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Cameron said Britain must do more fight the group, also known as ISIL. The remarks posted online Saturday follow a commitment to meet NATO targets on military spending and make plain that Britain now sees the group as an explicit threat to national security. “We know that we have to defeat ISIL, we have to destroy this caliphate, whether it is in Iraq or in Syria,” he said. “That is a key part of defeating this terrorist scourge that we face.” The remarks come only days after Britain’s Ministry of Defense acknowledged that British forces have already conducted airstrikes over Syria — albeit only when embedded with coalition forces. Britain has been carrying out surveillance and air-to-air refueling over Syria and launching attacks on neighboring Iraq and Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has argued that lawmakers should expand the mission to Syria.