Majority rules

November 18, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

Myanmar’s opposition seals a historic victory, but possibly at the expense of its Muslim minority.

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Two US flights were delayed and passengers taken into custody Tuesday because of false alarms amid heightened airline security. Passengers on a British Airways flight from London to Boston sprang into action when a female passenger, whom police said was probably intoxicated, tried to open an aircraft door. A flight from Baltimore to Chicago was delayed for three hours over another security alert. A passenger who watched a news video on his phone that another passenger thought was related to the Islamic State group raised concern. Another passenger traveling with him took her child to the restroom during preparations for takeoff, and a passenger near them panicked. The plane returned to the gate, and four passengers who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent were removed from the plane for questioning, though they were released later that day.

Inhabitants of the Ionian Sea islands rushed out to the streets when they felt the tremor from a large earthquake off the western coast of Greece Tuesday. Two elderly women died as the magnitude 6.5 earthquake toppled houses and other buildings on the island of Lefkada. Four other people have been hospitalized, but they are not critically injured. Damage has been extensive, but the authorities' efforts to assess the earthquake's impact have been hampered by landslides.

Mayor Betsy Hodges of Minneapolis has requested a federal investigation of an incident Sunday where police shot a black young man, following protests by Black Lives Matter. Minneapolis police chief Janee Harteau said she, too, would welcome a Department of Justice civil rights investigation. Protestors have demanded the police release video of the incident. Chief Harteau said the officers involved were not wearing body cameras but would not say what other surveillance footage is available.

The first comprehensive study of the planet's groundwater revealed not only how much of Earth’s water lies beneath its surface, but also how old it is. The study, published Tuesday by the journal Nature Science, followed up on a hasty estimate of the planet's water supply that had not been updated since the 1970s, according to a press release. The water beneath the Earth's surface would cover the continents with 600 feet of water. That is a volume of 6 quintillion gallons.

The crew of a traditional double-hulled Hawaiian canoe celebrated the half-way mark of an epic journey around the world with a stop in South Africa, where they rested from the toughest part of the journey. The canoe expedition – part of a project that has celebrated and shared Hawaiian traditions since the 1970s – has just finished the first half of the journey, and its most difficult passage around Africa's southernmost tip. The crew said they experienced gale-force winds, lightning storms, horizontal rain, and freezing weather on their passage around the African coast.

Conservationists in Delaware declared a "major victory" for the Endangered Species Act this week, after nearly 50 years of interstate cooperation to pull a species back from near-extinction. The Delmarva Peninsula Fox Squirrel, a larger, fluffier, and blessedly quieter cousin to the common gray squirrel, was one of the first creatures listed on the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1967, the predecessor of the ESA. After a five year review, the US Fish and Wildlife Service says the fox squirrel, now 20,000 strong, is safe from extinction. It will be removed from the Threatened and Endangered Wildlife before 2016.

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