WASHINGTON — White House chief of staff Reince Priebus asked top FBI officials to dispute media reports that Donald Trump’s campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election, according to three White House officials who confirmed the unusual contact with law enforcement involved in a pending investigation.

The officials said that Priebus’ Feb. 15 request to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe came as the White House sought to discredit a New York Times report about calls between Russian intelligence officials and people involved with Trump’s presidential run.

As of this morning, the FBI had not commented publicly on the veracity of the report and there was no indication it planned to, despite the White House’s request.

The White House officials would only discuss the matter on the condition of anonymity. Two hours later, Trump panned news stories that rely on anonymous sources, telling a conservative conference that reporters “shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name.”

White House officials said it was the FBI that first raised concerns about the Times reporting but told Priebus the bureau could not weigh in publicly on the matter. The officials said McCabe and Comey instead gave Priebus the go-ahead to discredit the story publicly, something the FBI has not confirmed.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Senate has unanimously passed a bill that would make driving under the influence a felony if the driver has three or more prior offenses on their criminal record within 10 years.

Senate Bill 5037 passed Thursday and now heads to the House, where it has stalled in previous years.

Under the measure, a person who is charged with a fourth DUI, and has no other criminal history, would be subject to a standard sentencing range of 13 to 17 months in jail.

CANNON BALL, N.D. — Oil could be flowing through the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline in less than two weeks, according to court documents filed by the developer just before police and soldiers started clearing a protest camp in North Dakota where pipeline opponents had gathered for the better part of a year.

Energy Transfer Partners has finished drilling under Lake Oahe and will soon be laying pipe under the Missouri River reservoir, the Dallas-based company said.

“Dakota Access estimates and targets that the pipeline will be complete and ready to flow oil anywhere between the week of March 6, 2017, and April 1, 2017,” company attorney William Scherman said in the documents filed in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

The work under the Missouri River reservoir is the last stretch of the 1,200-mile pipeline that will move oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. ETP got permission for the lake work last month from the pro-energy Trump administration, though American Indian tribes continue fighting the project in court.

The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes say the pipeline threatens their drinking water, cultural sites and ability to practice their religion, which depends on pure water. ETP rejects those claims and says the pipeline is safe.

CARSON CITY, Nev. — Nevada still plans to launch recreational marijuana sales in July despite warnings this week of a federal crackdown by the administration of President Donald Trump, state officials said today.

Marijuana possession and sales are illegal under federal law, but Nevada voters decided in November to allow people age 21 or older to use pot recreationally — becoming one of eight states to do so.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday that the United States Justice Department will step up enforcement of federal laws prohibiting recreational — not medical — marijuana. No immediate action accompanied the statement, came in response to a reporter’s question.

That has not prompted the Nevada agency tasked with crafting rules governing recreational marijuana sales to change its timeline for ensuring dispensaries can open this summer, said agency spokeswoman Stephanie Klapstein.

“As of now, the Department of Taxation is moving forward with our regulation development as planned,” she said.

The Democratic leader of Nevada’s state Senate, Aaron Ford, criticized the White House for what he called an “overzealous attack on the will of Nevada voters.”

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The poison used to kill the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader at a crowded air terminal in Malaysia was the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent, police said today, as they began a sweep of the airport for any traces of the deadly toxin.

The revelation that VX nerve agent was used in the Feb. 13 attack boosted speculation that Pyongyang dispatched a hit squad to kill Kim Jong Nam, the outcast older sibling of North Korea’s ruler.

The case also raised questions about public safety, although there was no sign that any bystanders had fallen ill. Police said one of the alleged attackers had been vomiting in the hours after the attack, but there were no reports that anyone else had been sickened.

Asked if people should avoid the airport because of fears of contamination, Malaysia’s Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said: “No. No. No. But I don’t know. I am not the expert.” He said experts would decontaminate the airport to ensure its safety.

VX nerve agent, deadly even in minute amounts, was detected on Kim’s eyes and face, Khalid said earlier in a written statement, citing a preliminary analysis from the country’s Chemistry Department.

Iraqi forces enter western Mosul, take airport from IS

BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces pushed into the first neighborhood in western Mosul today and took full control of the international airport on the city’s southwestern edge from the Islamic State group, according to Iraqi officials.

The gains mark the first key moves in the battle, now in its sixth day, to rout IS militants from the western half of the city of Mosul, the extremists’ last urban stronghold in Iraq.

The push by Iraqi forces into Mosul’s western Mamun neighborhood was followed by intense clashes with IS militants, according to an Iraqi special forces officer on the ground, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

An Associated Press team near the front line saw at least four wounded special forces’ members and the bodies of three soldiers, suggesting more intense fighting than the previous day. Iraq’s military does not release official casualty information.

Earlier today, the spokesman of the Joint Military Operation Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, said Iraqi forces had also retaken a sprawling military base adjacent to the airport.

BEIRUT — A car bombing north of a Syrian town just captured by Turkish forces and Syrian opposition fighters from the Islamic State group killed at least 35 people today, mostly civilians who had gathered trying to go back home, Turkey’s news agency and Syrian activists said.

According to Mohammed al-Tawil, a leading Syrian opposition fighter in the area, a suicide attacker blew his small pick-up truck outside a security office in Sousian village, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) north of al-Bab.

The explosion went off as the opposition fighters were organizing the return of civilians from al-Bab who had been displaced by the fighting for their town, he said.

Al-Bab, which had been controlled by IS since late 2013, was captured on Thursday, after more than two months of fighting led by Turkish troops supporting Syrian opposition fighters.

IS militants who withdrew from the town still control areas around it.

OLATHE, Kan. — A man accused of opening fire in a crowded suburban Kansas City bar, killing one man and injuring two others in an attack that some witnesses said was racially motivated, was charged Thursday with murder and attempted murder.

Authorities repeatedly declined at a news conference to say whether the shooting was a hate crime although local police said they were working with the FBI to investigate the case.

A bartender at Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kansas, said that Adam Purinton used “racial slurs” before he started shooting on Wednesday night as patrons were watching the University of Kansas-TCU basketball game on television.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, died at an area hospital, police said. Alok Madasani, 32, and Ian Grillot, 24, were hospitalized and are in stable condition, they said. The Linkedin accounts for Kuchibhotla and Madasani say that they were engineers working at GPS-maker Garmin and had studied in India.

A spokesman for India’s External Affairs Ministry, Vikas Swarup, said that Kuchibhotla was an Indian national from the southern state of Telangana.