US intelligence officials assessed that Russia's military intelligence agency paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill NATO troops in Afghanistan — which include American forces, according to a New York Times report on Friday.
US officials discovered information about the bounties earlier this year. Some of the bounty money was collected by either Islamist militants or those associated with them, The Times reported.
In 2019, 17 US troops were killed in combat in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department.
Interrogations of Afghan militants and criminals yielded the information indicating that Taliban-linked militants were offered bounties from Russian forces, The Times reported. The intelligence officials believe the bounties involve Unit 29155, a branch of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency.
Florida 
The half-brother of a black man found hanged in a Southern California park was killed by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies Wednesday after, they say, he opened fire on them. The shots were fired shortly after 4:30 p.m. in the Kern County community of Rosamond, just north of the Los Angeles County border in the Antelope Valley, Sheriff's Department officials said. It's 80 miles north of downtown L.A.
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday to block the Trump administration from ending an Obama-era program that shields nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation, upending a key feature of 
