A fight for tolerance

November 13, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

A Yazidi, Kurd, and Arab coalition shows promise on the battlefield. But the bigger battle is for tolerance over absolutism.

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The University of Missouri's governing board on Thursday appointed one of its first black law school graduates to be the university system's interim president, and he vowed to address the frustrations behind student-led protests that helped force his predecessor from office. Michael Middleton cited his 30 years at the university, where he was an undergraduate before attending its law school and going on to be a faculty member and administrator. "I have seen the system grow and excel over the years and I look with great optimism in the future," said Middleton, who resigned in August as deputy chancellor of the system's flagship campus in Columbia.

Twin suicide bombing struck a Shiite suburb in southern Beirut on Thursday evening, killing at least 37 people and wounding scores more in one of the deadliest attacks in years, a Lebanese official said. The explosions hit minutes apart in an area called Burj al-Barajneh during rush hour. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombings. Southern Beirut is a stronghold of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group that has been fighting in Syria along with government forces there. The area has been hit in the past. Sunni militant groups have threatened to carry out more such attacks.

Kurdish forces backed by US-led airstrikes launched a ground offensive Thursday to recapture the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS, aka the Islamic State. The Kurdish peshmerga captured a strategic highway in the early hours of the offensive with the help of thousands of lightly armed Yazidis. They also established positions along the supply route between Raqqa in Syria and the Iraqi city of Mosul, the Islamic State’s two strongholds.

The European Union launched a fund for Africa on Thursday with an initial $2 billion to combat the poverty and conflict driving migration to Europe, but African leaders said more fundamental economic change was needed. The trust fund, unveiled at a summit with African leaders in Malta, consists largely of $1.93 billion put up by the European Commission, the EU executive, from the bloc's central budget. The Commission wants member states to match that, but few have pledged much so far.

A laser beam coming from an area near Dallas hit three inbound planes on Wednesday evening, raising new concerns over the dangerous practice that can distract or temporarily blind pilots. The illegal use of laser pointers to distract pilots has sharply increased since federal officials first started keeping statistics in 2005. The FAA announced earlier this month that it received 5,148 reports of “lasing” between January 1 and October 9. It estimated that by the end of the year there will have been a total of 6,850 incidents, a 176 percent increase from 2014. Pointing lasers at aircraft became a federal crime in 2012. Offenders face a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine in addition to civil penalties of up to $11,000 for each violation.

Dubbed the "Witch of November" by some meteorologists, a powerful low-pressure weather system moved across the upper Midwest Wednesday, causing more than 10 tornadoes and numerous floods for residents across Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri and blizzard conditions across the Rockies. From Colorado to Ohio and Texas to Michigan, the system has affected more than 36.5 million people.

During the holiday season, officials at the Lexington Parking Authority in Kentucky, also known as LexPark, have enacted the "Food for Fines" program, which allows residents to pay off parking tickets with canned foods. Those who donate 10 canned food items to either LexPark or the Lexington Police Department between Nov. 16 and Dec. 18, can receive a $15 credit on any outstanding parking ticket. "It’s a great way for citizens to clear their record and help those in need at the same time," LexPark Executive Gary Means said in a statement.

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