In Brief: Nation & World: 8-22-16
Kenya’s Kipchoge wins gold in marathon, 1 color he’d lacked
RIO DE JANEIRO — Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya smiled as he crossed the finish line and later directed cheering fans from the podium. The one color of Olympic medal he lacked in his illustrious career finally is his.
Kipchoge grabbed the lead in the marathon Sunday around the 21-mile (35 kilometer) mark and finished off his first Olympic victory in this event in a time of 2 hours, 8 minutes and 44 seconds.
“I’ve won my Olympic gold medal,” Kipchoge said. “It was the Olympic gold medal that’s not (around) my neck.”
Kipchoge’s golden moment came was overshadowed by the silver medalist, Feyisa Lilesa, taking his opportunity to support protests back in his native Ethiopia. He crossed his wrists at the finish line, during the gift ceremony and again during the news conference in the symbol for the anti-government protests in Ethiopia
The nation has been marred by violence in recent weeks as government security forces have killed dozens of people amid protests over the nation’s decision to take over lands in the Oromia region. Protesters are calling for more freedom and an end of government brutality.
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Obama returns from summer vacation with eye on busy fall
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama returned from vacation Sunday, ready for a busy fall season and more battles with Congress over Zika funding, the federal budget and $400 million the administration paid Iran this year for the never-completed sale of military equipment.
Obama is also expected to campaign doggedly throughout October to help elect Democrat Hillary Clinton as president.
A theoretically rested president returned to the White House after a 16-day getaway to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, with his wife, Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha, and their dogs. He played 10 rounds of golf and went out to dinner eight times.
He will be at the White House for about a day before getting out on the road again Tuesday to survey damage from heavy flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that killed at least 13 people and displaced thousands more.
Obama had resisted pressure from Louisianans and others to interrupt his vacation to go meet with officials and flood victims. The White House said Obama received regular briefings on the situation during the vacation. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump filled the void created by Obama’s absence, touring the ravaged area Friday with his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
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Rio throws final party to say goodbye to 2016 Olympics
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil and the world bid farewell Sunday to the first Olympic Games in South America, a 16-day spectacle that combined numerous highlight reel moments with ugly and even bizarre episodes that sometimes overshadowed the competitions.
Thousands of fans braved strong winds and sporadic rains to watch the closing ceremony in iconic Maracana Stadium, a finale meant to be both one last bash and to take care of some business — namely signal the transition to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan.
The governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, accepted the flag from International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, signaling the end of the 2016 games and the transition.
There’s widespread expectation that the games in Tokyo, one of the world’s richest, most recognizable, cosmopolitan cities, will run more smoothly than they have in Rio. But there’s also worry in Japan over whether the Olympics will eventually further drag down an economy that has been struggling for decades.
Whatever the future holds, Sunday’s party was all about Brazil, a final party designed to be more low-key than the opening, which focused heavily on Rio. The ceremony opened with original footage of Alberto Santos Dumont, the man that Brazilians recognize as the inventor of the airplane. Brazilians also believe he is the first to ever wear a wristwatch, an invention made by a friend so he could see the time in flight.
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Campaign, party officials insist Trump getting back on track
WASHINGTON (AP) — After a tumultuous stretch of gaffes and falling poll numbers for Donald Trump, top GOP campaign and party officials insisted Sunday that their presidential nominee is getting back on track and will catch up with Democrat Hillary Clinton by around Labor Day.
Clinton campaign officials dismissed the idea of a changed Trump as nonsense.
“Donald Trump has been disciplined and mature. And I think he’s going to get this thing back on track,” said Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman.
Polls now mostly show Trump lagging Clinton by 5 percentage points or more nationally, but Priebus predicted they will tighten up and Trump will be “ahead as we move through September.”
Trump’s new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, echoed Priebus’ optimism, contending that the candidate just had the best week of his campaign, “mostly because he’s able to be himself, the authentic Donald Trump” and “the pivot that he’s made is on substance.”
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Young suicide bomber attacks Turkish wedding party; 51 die
ISTANBUL (AP) — A child suicide bomber killed at least 51 people and wounded nearly 70 others at a Kurdish wedding party near Turkey’s border with Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday, decrying the attack as an apparent attempt by Islamic State extremists to destabilize the nation by exploiting ethnic and religious tensions.
“As of now, the preliminary conclusions by our governor’s office and the police establishment point to an attack by Daesh,” Erdogan said, using another common term for IS.
“It was clear that Daesh had such an organization in Gaziantep or was attempting to make room for itself in recent times,” he said.
The bombing late Saturday in Gaziantep was the deadliest attack in Turkey this year.
It comes amid ongoing struggles between the government and Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, and as the country is still reeling from the aftermath of last month’s failed coup attempt, which the government has blamed on U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers.
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Child bomber in Turkey not the only violent use of children
BEIRUT (AP) — The suicide attacker who detonated his explosives amid an outdoor Kurdish wedding party in southeastern Turkey, killing at least 51 people, was an Islamic State group child as young as 12 years old. The extremist group has a history of using children as weapons, sending them to their death strapped with explosives and putting them on front lines in Iraq and Syria.
The group maintains an army of child soldiers, which it calls “cubs of the caliphate,” and seeks to re-educate children at IS-run schools, indoctrinating them with their own radical version of Islam and exposing them to violent acts including beheadings as part of a concerted effort to build a new generation of militants. IS videos have shown boys killing IS opponents through beheadings and shootings.
The group has deployed child suicide bombers to stage attacks in both Iraq and Syria. Among the most deadly attacks was a bombing at a youth soccer game at a stadium south of Baghdad on March 25, 2016. A bomber — believed be a teenager — detonated his explosives as officials were handing out trophies to players after the tournament, killing 29 and wounding 60. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility and released a photo of the attacker where he appears to be no more than 16 years old. Nearly half of those killed were also children, participating in the soccer game or cheering from the stands. The U.N.’s children’s agency, UNICEF, said in a recent report that thousands of children have been abducted in Iraq. Girls, the group says, are at greatest risk of being sold into sexual slavery while boys are often forced into becoming combatants or suicide bombers.
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Rural church among those providing aid after Louisiana flood
WALKER, La. (AP) — Outside the small town of Walker, Louisiana, a rural Baptist church has become an oasis for flood victims.
As waters rose amid torrential rains earlier this month, National Guard rescue crews dropped people off at South Walker Baptist Church because it sits on a ridge of relatively high ground in Livingston Parish near Baton Rouge. Even as flooding has receded in recent days, the church — like many other places across hard-hit south Louisiana — has continued providing sustenance for the body and soul.
It sheltered 96 people in the days after the storm, and Pastor Mark Carroll said the sanctuary is still a dormitory for more than 20 who lost their homes, including a man who had been living in his car until Saturday. It is also housing volunteers who have come to help people rebuild.
With a congregation of about 100 and with help from the community, the church is offering hot meals, running a pantry stocked by donations from around the U.S. and conducting prayer services. Carroll said the church had been planning a revival in about a month, but he believes the storm recovery is making that happen now as people build relationships with each other through God.
“It’s been this entire community,” Carroll said by phone Sunday. “We couldn’t have done anything without everyone, and I mean just about everyone, pitching in.”
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Illinois latest state to expand domestic workers’ rights
CHICAGO (AP) — Left out of federal labor law written decades ago, nannies, housekeepers and private caregivers are gaining legal protections in a growing number of states, with Illinois becoming the latest to establish a domestic workers’ “bill of rights.”
The Illinois rules, signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner this month, extend sexual harassment protections as well as minimum-wage pay and a guaranteed one day off in a seven-day work week to the domestic workforce, which is mostly female and immigrant heavy. Six other states have similar laws, but Illinois is now the first in the Midwest and advocates say they hope to expand their efforts into the southern states.
Backers say the laws are needed because domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation: They work alone at odd hours and often live where they work. The pay can be measly and for immigrants, language and legal status can complicate things.
Last week, a Minnesota woman was charged for allegedly beating and starving a woman she brought from China to work as a nanny up to 18 hours a day.
“Working in someone’s home and the aspect of it being invisible work from the public view … it leaves a lot of room for workers to be mistreated,” said Yomara Velez, an organizer with the New York-based National Domestic Workers Alliance.
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Official: Pills found at Prince’s estate contained fentanyl
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Some of the pills taken from Prince’s estate in Paisley Park after his death were counterfeit drugs that actually contained fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin, an official close to the investigation said Sunday.
The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said nearly two dozen pills found in one Aleve bottle were falsely labeled as “Watson 385.” According to Drugs.com, that stamp is used to identify pills containing a mix of acetaminophen and hydrocodone, but the official said at least one of the pills tested positive for fentanyl.
Autopsy results released in June show Prince died April 21 of an accidental fentanyl overdose. The official who spoke to the AP said records show the 57-year-old Prince had no prescription for any controlled substances in the state of Minnesota in the 12 months before he died.
Authorities are still investigating how Prince obtained the drugs.
Fentanyl has been responsible for a surge in overdose deaths in some parts of the country. When made into counterfeit pills, users don’t always know they’re taking fentanyl, increasing the risk of fatal overdose.
