The conundrum of 'kick me' politics

June 01, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

Sen. Rand Paul had become a piñata for Republican presidential candidates. But that's because he's actually doing and saying things.

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A bomb went off in the Gamboru market in Nigeria's northeastern city of Maiduguri on Sunday, a resident and a military source said. One person was killed, a hospital source told Reuters. There was no immediate claim for the blast, which is typical for such attacks, but it bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram.

Thousands of children affected by last month's earthquake in Nepal returned to schools on Sunday, a working day in the Himalayan nation, five weeks after the disaster killed more than 8,600 people and destroyed many homes. Dressed informally, children clutched their parents' hands before filing past ruins of collapsed buildings to enter tarpaulin tents and makeshift cottages that will serve as their schools until their old one is re-built.

Beijing will ban smoking in restaurants, offices and on public transport from Monday, part of unprecedented new curbs welcomed by anti-tobacco advocates, though how they will be enforced remains to be seen. Health activists have pushed for years for stronger restrictions on smoking in China, the world's largest tobacco consumer, which is considering further anti-smoking curbs nationwide. Under the rules, anyone in China's capital who violates the bans, which include smoking near schools and hospitals, must pay 200 yuan ($32.25).

Severe floods in Texas and Oklahoma are causing devastation after multiple storm systems battered a formerly drought-stricken area, according to experts. Heavy rainfalls began on Saturday and soaked the region through the weekend, leading to nearly record-breaking rains in some southern areas of Texas and Oklahoma. At least 10 people have been reported dead across Oklahoma and Texas, and thousands have been evacuated from their homes and are seeking temporary shelter. These catastrophic conditions are being caused by an El Niño pattern — a natural climate cycle that brings warmer-than-average temperatures to the Pacific Ocean — that has split the jet stream into two branches, with one river of air going off north and the other one sinking farther to the south.

He was the privileged son of a longtime U.S. senator and two-term vice president, yet Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III was no stranger to personal adversity. When he was only 3, just weeks after his father, Joe Biden, had been elected to the Senate, the younger Biden was seriously injured in a 1972 car crash that killed his mother and infant sister. His father was sworn into office at his hospital bedside.

An innovative tiny satellite designed to test deployment of a solar sail has re-awakened eight days after communications with the spacecraft were lost. The Planetary Society's digital editor Jason Davis announced on Twitter last night that LightSail had sent two packets of data. The LightSail satellite, a three-unit CubeSat which measures 30 cm by 10 cm by 10cm, was put into orbit on May 20 after hitching a ride aboard the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket that lauched one of the U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B robotic spaceplanes.

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

To send a comment to the Editor, email editor@csmonitor.com.

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

To send a comment to the Editor, email editor@csmonitor.com.

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