Secretary of State John Kerry is making an emergency surprise trip to the Middle East this weekend amid worries that the Obama administration’s newly brokered friendship between Turkey and Israel risks unraveling, U.S. and Israeli media report.
The administration is concerned about Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s plans to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip, a move certain to raise tensions in the volatile region. Erdoğan’s announcement risks undermining the major diplomatic coup the White House claimed last month when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Erdoğan to apologize for a 2010 Israeli raid that killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
Erdoğan’s plans were met with disapproval by the State Department, which reiterated its opposition to negotiating with Hamas. The United States considers Hamas a terrorist group. The department declined to confirm or deny the reports of Kerry’s travel plans.
Secretary Kerry is expected to fly to Turkey on Saturday, and will also visit Israel and the West Bank this weekend before kicking off a string of previously planned trips to London, South Korea, China, and Japan next week.
Shown The Door: Rutgers University has announced that men’s basketball coach Mike Rice will no longer work for the school as a result of a video which emerged on Tuesday. The footage, apparently captured during the basketball team’s practices, shows the former coach becoming physically and verbally abusive with Rutgers players. Rice’s firing was announced on the school’s Twitter account. (Photo via ESPN) source
North Korea has said it plans to restart its main atomic complex, a move that could bolster its nuclear arsenal and add to tensions in the region.
The regime said on Tuesday that it would restart all facilities at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex to ease its electricity shortage and strengthen its nuclear capability.
The reactor was shut down in 2007 as part of international nuclear disarmament talks that have since stalled.
Looks like things aren’t exactly cooling off between North and South Korea, though the Guardian notes that the reactor in question only generates enough to plutonium to create one (possibly unusable) nuclear weapon per year.
Will the new guidance make it harder for writers? Perhaps just a bit at first. But while labels may be more facile, they are not accurate.The Associated Press’ reasoning (in a nutshell) for officially dropping the term “illegal immigrant” from the AP Stylebook on Tuesday. Official AP style now calls for writers to specifically state that a person(s) is living in a given location illegally, rather than referring to the person(s) themselves as being illegal. source
Ellen DeGeneres will reprise her role as Dory, the blue fish introduced in 2003’s Finding Nemo, and co-director Andrew Stanton will return to helm Finding Dory as well. We hope you’ve been practicing your Whale. source
Update: For all of those concerned about a possible April Fools’ prank, it’s worth noting that this story wasn’t posted until after the start of normal business hours on April 2. Oh, and Ellen confirmed the news on her show. — Scott @ SFB
Former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa was readmitted to the hospital overnight because of a recurring lung infection, President Jacob Zuma said in a statement on Thursday, appealing to people around the world to pray for Mr. Mandela.
It was the third time in four months that Mr. Mandela, 94, South Africa’s first black president and former leader of the dominant African National Congress, had been hospitalized. He was admitted shortly before midnight on Wednesday, the statement said, but the authorities delayed the announcement for several hours. The episode rekindled worries about his frailty.
Mr. Mandela has struggled with lung issues since his 27-year incarceration during South Africa’s apartheid era, and was most recently hospitalized for a lung infection back in December.
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The deadly and mysterious coronavirus that first appeared in Saudi Arabia last year has claimed two more victims, bringing the official death toll to 11.
The World Health Organization said a 73-year-old man from the United Arab Emirates who was taken to Germany for medical treatment died at a Munich hospital Tuesday. The United Nations health authority also announced that a man from Britain who became sick in January has died. That man had traveled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and presumably became infected there.
A total of 17 cases of the new coronavirus have been confirmed by the WHO at this point, but a point of origin has yet to be determined. The virus is believed to have been first transmitted by a bat, but it’s unclear if another animal(s) served as an intermediary between the bat(s) and the first infected human(s).
Hey Bro: Posted because responses to several recent stories have served as a painful reminder that videos/messages like these can always use a signal boost. Just do yourself a favor, and avoid the comments section on YouTube.
The Bow Tie Is Back: After a few years of serving as an occasional Fox News contributor, the network has revealed that Tucker Carlson and his trademark bow tie (not pictured) will be joining the Fox & Friends weekend line-up. Carlson is perhaps best known for his time on CNN’s Crossfire, for his time on MSNBC, and as founder of The Daily Caller. (Which has been in the news lately, BTW.) He’ll replace Dave Briggs, who left the show in February to co-host The Crossover with Beadle and Briggs for the NBC Sports Network. (Photo via Gage Skidmore)
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