Mattis to Send US Navy Hospital Ship to Aid Venezuelan Migrants

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday he would dispatch a U.S. Navy hospital ship to the Colombian coast to help treat Venezuelan refugees that have overwhelmed the Colombian medical system -- the first U.S. military foray into the Venezuela crisis. "It is absolutely a humanitarian mission. We're not sending soldiers, we're sending doctors," Mattis told reporters of his plans to send the gleaming white, former freighter with a Red Cross painted on its side to help treat refugees in Colombia and probably other Latin American nations. More…