Friday, November 20, 2015

Last Top Stories: Gunmen attack luxury hotel in Mali capital, take 170 hostages

  • Gunmen attack luxury hotel in Mali capital, take 170 hostages

    Gunmen attack luxury hotel in Mali capital, take 170 hostages
    BAMAKO, Mali —Security forces swept through a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital on Friday, freeing hostages and surrounding militants who killed least 20 people in the latest bloodshed apparently linked to the country’s battles against Islamist insurgents.Mali’s security minister, Col. Salif Traore, said all hostages were safe after gunmen stormed the Radisson Blu hotel, sending some of the 170 staff and guests fleeing in panic and others cowering in hiding places during the seven-hour standoff.One..
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  • The French female extremist's curious path to Islamist violence

    The French female extremist's curious path to Islamist violence
    Islamic State militant Hasna Aitboulahcen was killed in the standoff with police in Saint-Denis, France, on Nov. 18. Listen to the last few words she exchanged with French police. (AP)The story of Hasna Aitboulahcen is filled with jolting plot turns.It began 26 years ago in Clichy-la-Garenne, a township on the outskirts of Paris. There, in the picturesque suburbs anchored by the Seine River and the Clichy bridge, Aitboulahcen was born to Moroccan immigrants.According to neighbors’ accounts in th..
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  • The cosmetic surgery agony of 'Modern Family' actor Reid Ewing

    The cosmetic surgery agony of 'Modern Family' actor Reid Ewing
    Reid Ewing at 2012 screening.  (AP)Reid Ewing believed cosmetic surgery would be his lifeline.Then 19 and still new to Los Angeles, the “Modern Family” actor spent much of his time alone in his apartment, taking photos of himself from every possible angle and then analyzing them in torturous detail. Poring over the images, his traced familiar routes across the planes of his face — down the jawline, along the ridges of his profile, across the expanse of his cheeks — always ending at the same conc..
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  • Rallies mark one year since Obama's deportation-relief proposal

    Rallies mark one year since Obama's deportation-relief proposal
    Demonstrators chant slogans in New York in May, demanding the end of a lawsuit that blocks a program protecting certain immigrants from deportation. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)Immigrant advocacy groups rallied Friday outside the Supreme Court, calling on the justices to rule in favor of President Obama’s stalled deportation-relief proposal and threatening to hold accountable the Republican governors who so far have blocked it.The rally, and similar gatherings across the country, marked the ..
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  • Pollard, spy for Israel, released from prison after 30 years

    Pollard, spy for Israel, released from prison after 30 years
    Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst turned spy for Israel, walked out of a North Carolina prison before dawn Friday, ending one of the thorniest points of friction between the United States and its close ally.Pollard, 61, was freed on parole, almost to the day 30 years after he was arrested when he was turned out from the Israeli Embassy, where he and his wife, Anne, had sought asylum after coming under suspicion for passing classified information.Pollard's lawyer has said he has a job ..
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  • European countries agree to strict new steps to secure borders

    European countries agree to strict new steps to secure borders
    PARIS —European countries agreed Friday to new steps aimed at securing Europe’s borders in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris, moving to impose stricter passport checks, a crackdown on weapons trafficking and an eventual new system for maintaining airline passenger lists, even as France extended its sweeping counterterrorism operations at home.Senior European officials meeting in Brussels agreed to implement a higher measure of monitoring at external borders. Today, European Unio..
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  • Thanksgiving holiday is a deadly one on US roads

    Thanksgiving holiday is a deadly one on US roads
    Traffic on the I-495 is backed up from Bethesda to College Park. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post).Nobody wants to hear this, but holiday travel, combined with holiday drinking, will result in hundreds of deaths and injuries this holiday season.Over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend alone, the National Safety Council estimates 433 deaths and 52,300 injuries requiring medical attention may occur because of car crashes. But the annual projection isn’t meant to scare you off, the nonprofit group..
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  • 'White Student Union' challenges Black Lives Matter at University of...

    'White Student Union' challenges Black Lives Matter at University of...
    Screenshot of a post on the Facebook page of the Illini White Student Union that referenced the film “American History X,” about a violent white supremacist.A Facebook page ostensibly created for an audience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign called “Illini White Students Union” has drawn fire after it characterized the national Black Lives Matter movement as “terrorism.”Created Wednesday after a protest sympathetic to Black Lives Matter, the page declared itself “for white studen..
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  • Sharp increases in drug costs draw hundreds to government forum

    Sharp increases in drug costs draw hundreds to government forum
    (Bloomberg)The Obama administration’s top health official said Friday that the nation needs to find a path that helps patients afford prescription drugs without stunting the emergence of new pharmaceuticals.“For the sake of patients, our health care system, and our economy, we must simultaneously support innovation, access and affordability,” Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said.Burwell’s remarks opened a broad, day-long forum that HHS is sponsoring to draw attention t..
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  • This parasitic worm appears to boost female fertility

    This parasitic worm appears to boost female fertility
    Tsimane women are tested annually for parasites and given medical treatment. (Courtesy Hillard Kaplan)The Tsimane women of Bolivia are often revered as among the most fertile in the world — on average having 10 children in their lifetimes — but some are even more fertile than others.While collecting information from nearly 1,000 women in this community over nine years, researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara discovered that it may have to do with something pretty surprisin..
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