Jordan launches new airstrikes on IS militants

AMMAN, Jordan - Dozens of Jordanian fighter jets bombed Islamic State training centers and weapons storage sites Thursday, intensifying attacks after the militants burned a captured Jordanian pilot to death.

As part of the new campaign, Jordan is also attacking targets in Iraq, said Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. Until now, Jordan had struck IS targets in Syria, but not Iraq, as part of a U.S.-led military coalition.

"We said we are going to take this all the way, we are going to go after them wherever they are and we're doing that," Judeh told Fox News.

Asked if Jordan was now carrying out attacks in both countries, he said: "That's right. Today more Syria than Iraq, but like I said it's an ongoing effort."

Japanese view slain hostages as troublemakers

TOKYO - In Japan, where conformity takes precedence over individuality, one of the most important values is to avoid "meiwaku" - causing trouble for others. And sympathy aside, the two Japanese purportedly slain by the Islamic State group are now widely viewed as troublemakers.

So is Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Many Japanese feel that if the hostages had not ignored warnings against travel to Syria, or if Abe had not showcased Tokyo's support for the multinational coalition against the Islamic State militants, Japan wouldn't have been exposed to this new sense of insecurity and unwelcomed attention from Islamic extremists.

"To be honest, they caused tremendous trouble to the Japanese government and to the Japanese people. In the old days, their parents would have had to commit hara-kiri (ritual suicide) to apologize," said Taeko Sakamoto, a 64-year-old part-time worker, after first expressing sympathy over the deaths of Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa.

Sakamoto also sees Abe as part of the problem, for not being more mindful of the risks at a time when he had already been pushing to expand Japan's military role, which is limited to its own self-defense under the U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution after its defeat in World War II.

French, German leaders back Ukraine plan

KIEV, Ukraine - Carrying a peace plan that reportedly incorporates proposals from Russia, the leaders of Germany and France met Thursday with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a hastily arranged mission to bring an end to the accelerated fighting in the east of the country.

The trip by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, who will follow by meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Moscow, came as concerns rose about whether the U.S. would grant lethal aid to Ukraine and as NATO formed a quick-reaction force of 5,000 soldiers in response to Russia's increased military muscle-flexing.

The meeting with Poroshenko ended late Thursday and Hollande and Merkel left the presidential offices without comment. Details of their plan remained unclear, although Poroshenko said at the start of the meeting that it raised hopes for calling a quick cease-fire.

The high-level diplomacy came as resurgent fighting killed eight more people in eastern Ukraine and fueled fears the conflict is threatening Europe's overall security. More than 5,300 people have been killed since the fighting started in April.

California gives oil companies 2,500 permits

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Regulators in California, the country's third-largest oil-producing state, have authorized oil companies to inject production fluids and waste into what are now federally protected aquifers more than 2,500 times, risking contamination of underground water supplies that could be used for drinking water or irrigation, state records show.

While the permits go back decades, an Associated Press analysis found that nearly half of those injection wells - 46 percent - were approved or began injections in the last four years under Gov. Jerry Brown, who has pushed state oil and gas regulators to increase the permitting process. That happened despite growing warnings from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 2011 that state regulators were not in compliance with federal laws meant to protect underground drinking-water stores from oilfield contamination.

In California, "we need a big course correction. We need to get the system back in compliance," said Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator for the EPA. "Californians expect their water is not being polluted by oil producers ... This poses that very real danger."

No Child Left Behind debate heats up quickly

WASHINGTON - House Democratic lawmakers are clawing to get their views heard as Congress moves ahead on revising the much-maligned No Child Left Behind education law and its annual school testing requirements.

They crowded into a small Capitol Hill hearing room Thursday for their own forum on changing the law in protest of Republicans' handling of the issue. Votes on a GOP bill are anticipated soon.

The bill "shows that poor, minority and disabled children are not a priority for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle," said Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio.

Some worried about a provision in the bill to let federal dollars follow a low-income student to a different public school, saying they fear it will hurt schools with a high concentration of poor students. "How do you think we can best get that message out?" said Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif.