Month: November 2021

Officials confirmed on Sunday that Iraq’s prime minister was unharmed in an attack by an explosive-laden drone on his residence in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone. Iraqi state media described the attack as an assassination attempt on the prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi.  Iraq’s Interior Ministry said the attack involved three drones, two of which were shot down by Iraqi security forces, while the third managed to hit the residence.  al-Kadhimi said in a televised video message that the residence “came under a cowardly attack, but thanks to God, me and all those who work with me are safe.” Al Kadhimi also called for calm and restraint in the wake of the attack.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iraqi officials in Baghdad indicated that pro-Iranian Shiite militias may be responsible; they’ve already conducted similar attacks on Baghdad’s Green Zone, the U.S. Embassy and the airport in Erbil. The assassination attempt came less than two days after heavily armed pro-Iranian militias threatened to hold the prime minister accountable for casualties resulting from a confrontation between Iraqi security forces and pro-militia demonstrators protesting recent election results, in which pro-Iranian militias suffered major losses in Parliament.

The attack represented the first serious assassination attempt of an Iraqi prime minister in the years since the American invasion of 2003.

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The names of some of the victims who died at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas have been revealed by authorities. At least eight people were killed and hundreds were treated for injuries after a sold-out crowd of nearly 50,000 people surged during rapper Travis Scott’s performance at the music festival Friday night, with the medical examiner asking for the public’s help identifying the eighth and final victim. City officials gave the ages of the victims as 14, 16, two 21-year-olds, two 23-year-olds, and one 27-year-old, in addition to the unknown individual.

Officials declared a “mass casualty event” outside NRG Park during the Astroworld Festival after the crowd surged toward the stage just after 9 p.m., overwhelming security forces. Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña told CNN the causes of death are pending and as of press time over a dozen people remain hospitalized, five under the age of 18.

The victims identified are: Brianna Rodriguez, a 16-year-old junior at Houston’s Heights High School; Illinois native Franco Patino, 21, a student at the University of Dayton in Ohio; Jacob Jurinek, a student at Southern Illinois University; Rodolfo Angel Peña, 23, a Texas native described as an aspiring model and psychology student, 14-year-old John Hilgert who attended Memorial High School in Houston, TX, and 27-year-old Danish Baig.

Houston authorities appealed to the public for help in identifying one of the eight victims, releasing a picture of the young man with dark hair and a goatee. As of press time, the 8th victim was identified by his father as Axel Acosta, a 21 student at Western Washington University.

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LGBTQ+ civil rights groups in Tennessee filed a lawsuit Thursday against the state’s controversial transgender sports ban. Filed by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Tennessee on behalf of transgender 14-year-old Luc Esquivel, the suit argues that banning transgender students from their desired sports teams is unconstitutional and discriminatory.

The suit also argues that preventing transgender children from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity encourages bullying in schools, denies transgender children the benefits of participating in sports and ultimately acts as “a solution in search of a problem” that does not exist.  The suit read: “For some transgender students, being required to play on a team that does not match their gender identity would have the additional consequence of revealing private medical information, as not all students who are transgender are known to be transgender by their peers.”  Esquivel said in a press release Thursday: “I was really looking forward to trying out for the boys’ golf team and, if I made it, training and competing with and learning from other boys and improving my game. Then, to have the legislature pass a law that singled out me and kids like me to keep us from being part of a team, that crushed me, it hurt very much. I just want to play, like any other kid.”

The ban, which was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee, was touted as a way to preserve fairness in women’s sports. But the bill requires schools to make both female and male transgender athletes play on teams that match their gender assigned at birth, something opponents say is discriminatory and unfairly targets transgender or gender non-conforming athletes.

The U.S. military announced Thursday that the Navy fired leaders of the USS Connecticut for “loss of confidence” after the submarine struck an underwater mountain in the South China Sea. The commanding officer of the fast-attack submarine, Cmdr. Cameron Aljilani, second-in-command, Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Cashin, and the chief of the boat Master Chief Sonar Technician Cory Rodgers were fired following the incident, the Japan-based U.S. 7th Fleet announced.

Vice Adm. Karl Thomas, commander of the 7th Fleet, reviewed the investigation on Thursday and made the decision to relieve the leadership. A statement by the 7th Fleet read: “Thomas determined sound judgment, prudent decision-making and adherence to required procedures in navigation planning, watch team execution and risk management could have prevented the incident.”

Eleven sailors were injured in the incident on Oct. 2, when the USS Connecticut collided with the seamount, an underwater mountain. No further details were released Thursday regarding exactly who the command failed to prevent the crash.

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Senate Republicans again blocked a voting rights bill Wednesday that would strengthen the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The chamber voted 50-49 in favor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, 10 votes shy of the 60 needed to advance the bill. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer voted against it so he’d have the option of bringing the legislation back up in the future. Republicans also blocked an earlier version of the bill — the Freedom to Vote Act — in October.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after the congressman and civil rights activist from Alabama, was passed by the House in August. The bill seeks to strengthen the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has been weakened by a pair of Supreme Court rulings. If signed into law the bill would restore the Justice Department’s ability to block certain jurisdictions with a history of voter discrimination from altering their voting rules, after the Supreme Court in 2013 ruled the method used to implement the provision was outdated.

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A jury was seated on Wednesday in the murder trial of three Georgia men accused in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in February 2020.  A pool of about 1,000 potential jurors over the course of nearly three weeks was whittled down by the Glynn County Superior Court; of the 12 jurors and four alternates, one was a person of color; five were men and 11 women.

Prosecutors accused defense attorneys of racial bias and asked Judge Timothy Walmsley to reinstate eight Black potential jurors that the defense had struck from the final jury. Arbery was black and the three men accused of killing him were white. Greg McMichael, his son, Travis McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan each face charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment for the shooting death of Arbery on Feb. 23, 2020.

Video footage from Bryan’s vehicle showed Arbery, 25, being boxed in by two pickup trucks driven by the defendants as he was jogging through a Brunswick neighborhood less than 2 miles from his home. Travis McMichael then appears to get out of his vehicle and shoot Arbery three times with a shotgun. The elder McMichael told police they pursued Arbery after suspecting he’d committed a series of break-ins in the neighborhood, though there hadn’t been a string of break-ins reported in the area in weeks. All three men pleaded not guilty to the charges.

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