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It’s Wednesday, and here are five things to know for your New Day:
BRAZIL POLITICS
No indictment: Sandra Bland’s death was controversial, sparking conversation (and protests) about the role of race in policing. Bland, an African-American woman, was arrested in July for allegedly failing to use her turn signal. Three days later, she was dead in her jail cell. Did she hang herself with a plastic bag? Her family and others have never believed that. Now they have to deal with something else: a grand jury won’t return indictments related to her death, though it will reconvene in January to consider other charges. Reaction was swift: Bernie Sanders said she’d be alive if she had been a white woman.
CAMPAIGN 2016
Keep hope alive: The anti-Trump brigade held a big meeting yesterday, to assess all the weapons at its disposal to stop The Donald: A unity ticket. A third party candidacy. A good old-fashioned convention flight. Will any of it work? Has anything they’ve tried worked?
NORTH KOREA
Americans killed: It was a deadly two days for Americans in Afghanistan. On Monday, six U.S. troops were killed in a suicide motorcycle bomb attack in Bagram. Their names haven’t been released, but we do know one of them was a New York City detective. On Sunday, an American woman was shot and killed while leaving a gym in Kabul. A mullah was arrested in that case.
Bombs away: North Korea’s at it again, chunking stuff into the sea. That “stuff” was actually two ballistic missiles, fired off the Korean peninsula’s west coast early this morning. The South Koreans, who have to monitor such things, said one missile went 800 kilometers (that’s almost 500 miles for non-metric folks) east toward the sea, while the other disappeared from radar about 17 kilometers (10 miles) up. Cue the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth from the U.S., the U.N., Japan, China … you get the picture.
POOL PARTY VIDEO
Officer quits: When former police officer Eric Casebolt slammed a girl in a bathing suit to the ground, a cell phone recorded it. And after it spread online, some people alleged racism. Casebolt is white; the girl is African-American. Yesterday, he resigned from the McKinney, Texas, police department. The cell phone belonged to a white teenager, who said Casebolt skipped over him when he lit into his black friends, barking at them to all sit down. Before he grabbed the girl, the officer could be seen unholstering his gun.
CARTOON CONTEST ATTACK
Picture a prison cell: Remember the Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas and the foiled terror attack that targeted it? An ISIS supporter who provided support for that plot has been convicted for his role in that. It was the first jury trial in the U.S. involving an attack carried out in the name of ISIS. Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem was convicted of conspiring to provide material support to foreign terrorists and a few other bad charges. In other words, he’s not getting out for a long time.
Gained - A ginormous stockpile of U.S.-made weapons it looted from the Iraqi military and Syrian rebels. Sigh.
BREAKFAST BROWSE
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Quote(s) of the day
“I hate some of these people, I hate ‘em. I would never kill them. I would never do that”
Keeping up with the Kardashian
The new Star Wars flick is Jar Jar Binks-free. Also absent: Ewoks. Woop woop!
Simply red
… of the living room, that is. ‘Dirty Dancing’ is returning as a TV movie. ABC promises you’ll have the time of your life.
A saucy Santa
Apple’s debuted a battery case for the juice-sucking iPhone - an ungainly lumpy case the sheeple will happily shell out $99 for.
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH
Here’s what’s coming up later.
Court date
After the mistrial
Number of the day
$2.4 billion
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
AND FINALLY …
Star Wars fever
A zoo visitor’s magic trick has this curious orangutan ROTFL.
Mind. Blown.