LAS VEGAS — The U.S. government is allocating nearly $17 million to help people affected by the Las Vegas Strip mass shooting that became the deadliest in the nation’s modern history, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Friday.

The money from the Justice Department will defray costs of counseling, therapy, rehabilitation, trauma recovery and legal aid for thousands of people affected by the Oct. 1, 2017, massacre, Whitaker said.

Fifty-eight people died and more than 850 were injured when a gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel into an open-air country music concert crowd of 22,000 people.

Whitaker termed the $16.7 million grant to victims, family members, medical personnel, first responders, concert staff, vendors and witnesses as an effort to help Las Vegas heal.

“We have already provided $3 million to cover expenses for state and local law enforcement in Las Vegas and in Clark County following last October’s horrific mass shooting,” he said.

The Justice Department said the money will supplement a $31.4 million compensation fund collected and spent by the Nevada Office for Victims of Crime.

A committee overseeing the state fund created a protocol to make payments to more than 530 people.

Relatives of those killed and people whose injuries left them with permanent brain damage or paralysis received the maximum $275,000.

Smaller sums were given to those who were hospitalized or received medical care on an emergency or outpatient basis in the days after the shooting.

EPA watchdog: Pruitt’s quitting left ethics probes inconclusive

WASHINGTON — The internal watchdog at the Environmental Protection Agency has closed two probes into the conduct of former Administrator Scott Pruitt as inconclusive because investigators were unable to interview him before he resigned.

EPA Acting Inspector General Charles Sheehan said in a report sent to Congress this week that Pruitt’s departure left his investigators unable to complete reviews into Pruitt’s bargain-rate rental of a Capitol Hill condo from the wife of an industry lobbyist and efforts by Pruitt’s government staff to pursue business opportunities for his wife, including seeking a Chick-fil-A fast-food franchise.

Pruitt was forced to resign in July following a string of ethics scandals. President Donald Trump has indicated he will nominate Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler for the post.

Brazil’s president-elect to end military intervention in Rio

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s president-elect said Friday that under his government the military will not be in charge of security forces in Rio de Janeiro state.

Jair Bolsonaro told reporters he will not extend the military intervention that began in February amid a spike in violence. The intervention is scheduled to end Dec. 31 and Bolsonaro takes office the next day.

The measure has put thousands of soldiers in the streets and increased operations against drug-trafficking gangs that largely operate in poor areas. But some Brazilians say it has not helped address underlying issues like unemployment and income inequality.

In August, Public Security Minister Raul Jungmann said he wanted to extend the military intervention for another year.

Fire-scarred California areas escape large-scale rain damage

SAN FRANCISCO — A major storm brought localized mudslides and street flooding to California and some people had to be rescued from stranded vehicles, but fire-scarred areas escaped large-scale damage.

Water from flash floods receded in Northern California and crews on Friday cleared debris from roads, culverts and levees that flooded in Chico, authorities said.

Debris flowed downhill from Paradise, a town destroyed by a wildfire three weeks ago, to Chico during a downpour that dumped 1 inch of rain in an hour, the National Weather Service said.

The heavy rain inundated roads, trapping people in about 100 vehicles and forcing evacuations in Chico, a city of 90,000 where many of the fire evacuees from Paradise are staying.

1st S. Korean train in decade enters N. Korea

TOKYO — A South Korean train rolled across the heavily militarized frontier into North Korea for the first time in a decade on Friday, as Seoul pushed ahead with a plan to reunite the two railway networks despite heavy U.N. sanctions.

The train pulled six cars carrying dozens of South Korean officials and experts, who will undertake an 18-day, 750-mile survey of railway tracks in the North.

The journey required special permission from the United Nations to carry equipment and fuel into the North.

Seoul plans to hold a ground-breaking ceremony before the end of the year on a plan to establish road and rail links between the two Koreas, first agreed upon by the countries’ two leaders at a summit in April. But the project can’t become reality unless sanctions are lifted.

Mueller considers new charges for Manafort

WASHINGTON — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort may face additional charges after lawyers in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation said he lied to them and broke his plea agreement, prosecutors said Friday.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson set a tentative sentencing date of March 5 as prosecutors plan to disclose next week what they believe are the lies Manafort told since pleading guilty in September and agreeing to cooperate with the investigation.

Manafort’s lawyers will have an opportunity to respond and a judge is expected to hear arguments before deciding if he breached his plea deal.

Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said prosecutors had not yet decided whether to file new charges.

War ID: The remains of a pilot killed in World War II are the first of the 27 Tuskegee Airmen listed as missing in action to be identified, the Pentagon said Thursday. The remains are those of Lawrence Dickson, 24, of New York, who died when his P-51 Mustang crashed near the Italy-Austria border on Dec. 23, 1944.

In Congo: Global health experts are urging the Trump administration to allow U.S. government disease specialists to return to northeastern Congo to help fight the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history.

The U.S. experts were ordered away from the region weeks ago because of security concerns.