A democratic dream deferred

January 26, 2016 - Daily News Briefing

Egypt's Tahrir Square uprising five years ago was a moment of hope that didn't last. But hope never dies.

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The weekend's record-breaking East Coast blizzard has ended, but the challenges of getting around in its aftermath have only just begun. Icy roads, runways, and train tracks, plus mounds of snow burying cars, equals a quiet start of the week for all except those responsible for getting transportation networks back up and running. Measurements taken at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport show 29.2 inches of snow accumulation there, which is a record, reports CNN.

The historic black church in Charleston, S.C., where nine people were killed in a deadly shooting in June, now has a new pastor – one who aspires to bring hope and unity to the church and community, local news outlets report. The Rev. Dr. Betty Deas Clark became the first female pastor at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Saturday. The next day she delivered her first sermon, which focused on a message of hope.

A Japanese rocket maker said Monday that a large piece of metal that washed up on a beach in Thailand is likely part of a rocket launched by Japan, not a missing Malaysian plane. The discovery of the metal sparked speculation that it might be from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared almost two years ago. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said the metal piece is "highly likely" to be part of a Japanese H-IIA or H-IIB rocket that was launched from southern Japan, based on an initial examination of photos and videos of the object.

A record-breaking string of hot years since 2000 is almost certainly a sign of man-made global warming, with vanishingly small chances that it was caused by random, natural swings, a study showed on Monday. Last year was the hottest since records began in the 19th century in a trend that almost all scientists blame on greenhouse gases from burning of fossil fuels, stoking heat waves, droughts, downpours and rising sea levels.

Tests that showed elevated levels of lead and copper in an Ohio town’s water supply has led officials to close schools Monday and order another round of inspections. The city manager of Sebring, a small town of some 4,000 people located about 60 miles south of Cleveland, issued an advisory Thursday night warning children and pregnant women to avoid drinking the village system’s tap water after seven of 20 homes showed levels of copper and lead beyond US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. The warning comes as neighboring Michigan grapples with a lead-poisoning crisis in Flint – a disaster that experts say underscores the growing need for investment and innovation in the nation’s aging infrastructure.

A Houston grand jury investigating undercover footage of Planned Parenthood found no wrongdoing Monday by the abortion provider and instead indicted anti-abortion activists involved in making the videos that provoked outrage among Republican leaders nationwide. David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, and Sandra Merritt, another activist, were indicted on felony charges of tampering with a governmental record. It's the first time anyone in the group has been charged criminally since the videos started surfacing last year.

Most Americans from both parties continue to doubt the federal government is up to the challenge of facing what they see as the nation’s top priorities, a new survey has found. Just one week before the first presidential primary, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released a poll, conducted in December, showing that more than 60 percent of respondents expressed little or no confidence that the government can confront the problems facing the United States in 2016.

Thirty years ago this Thursday, the nation watched as NASA’s space shuttle Challenger burst into flames 73 seconds after launching into the blue Florida sky. It is one of NASA’s greatest tragedies, an accident that took the lives of seven astronauts who were on board, as their families, friends, and the rest of the nation watched in horror at Cape Canaveral and on live television. The explosion was imprinted on the memories of an entire generation of Americans, many of whom remember exactly where they were on that day in January 1986.

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