Free speech and wise speech

May 06, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

Insulting another person's beliefs is not kind or compassionate. But it's protected by the 1st Amendment.

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Secretary of State John Kerry made an unannounced trip to Somalia Tuesday in a show of solidarity with a government trying to defeat Al Qaeda-allied militants and end decades of war in the African country. He is the first top US diplomat ever to visit Somalia. Kerry arrived at Mogadishu's airport shortly before noon local time, greeted by Somalia's president and prime minister on the tarmac. He held a series of meetings that included both of them along with regional leaders and civil society groups, before flying back to Kenya a little more than three hours later.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch pledged Tuesday to improve the city's police department after meeting with the family of a man who was fatally injured in police custody. The new attorney general met privately at the University of Baltimore with Freddie Gray's family, days after the state's attorney charged six police officers involved in Gray's arrest. The FBI and the Justice Department are investigating Gray's death for potential civil rights violations. Lynch also met with Reps. Elijah Cummings, John Sarbanes and Dutch Ruppersberger and Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, an underdog joining a crowded field of White House hopefuls. Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister turned politician, is the third Republican to enter the race this week. Two political outsiders, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a black conservative, launched their presidential campaigns on Monday.

Britain's political leaders crisscrossed the country Tuesday in a frenetic last dash to convert undecided voters, with less than 48 hours to go until an election likely to produce no outright winner. Polls put the Conservatives and Labour neck-and-neck, with neither on course for a majority in Parliament. That means Thursday's vote will likely trigger a period of negotiations with smaller parties before a new government emerges.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers called a Russian historian and a psychiatrist to the stand Tuesday in a bid to save the Boston Marathon bomber from the death penalty by portraying him as the product of a dysfunctional family from a turbulent corner of the world. Dr. Alexander Niss, a psychiatrist who treated Tsarnaev's father in Boston from 2003 to 2005, said he diagnosed the elder Tsarnaev with post-traumatic stress disorder after he reported being tortured in a Russian camp during the Chechen wars with Russia in the 1990s.

President Obama nominated Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, choosing a widely respected, combat-hardened commander who led the Afghanistan war coalition during a key transitional period during 2013-14, officials said. The move cuts short Dunford's service as the commandant of the US Marine Corps, a job he began last October. But the rapid promotion is one of several that have marked Dunford's fast-tracked military career, which saw him leap from a one-star general to four stars in about three years. Officials also said Obama is tapping Gen. Paul J. Selva, a top Air Force officer and pilot, to serve as vice chairman.

“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.

Subscribe Now to read this post!

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