In Brief: Nation & World: 5-23-16

Afghan leaders see Taliban leader’s death as hopeful sign

KABUL, Afghanistan — The killing of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. drone strike was greeted Sunday by Kabul’s political leadership as a game-changer in efforts to end the long insurgent war plaguing Afghanistan.

In a rare show of unity, President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah both welcomed the news of Mansour’s death as the removal of a man who unleashed violence against innocent civilians in Afghanistan and was widely regarded as an obstacle to peace within the militant group.

Mansour, believed to be in his 50s, was killed when a U.S. drone fired on his vehicle in the southwestern Pakistan province of Baluchistan, although there were conflicting accounts whether the airstrike occurred Friday or Saturday. He had emerged as the successor to Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, whose 2013 death was only revealed last summer.

Mansour “engaged in deception, concealment of facts, drug-smuggling and terrorism while intimidating, maiming and killing innocent Afghans,” Ghani said in a statement on his official Twitter account.

“A new opportunity presents itself to those Taliban who are willing to end war and bloodshed,” he added.

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Iraq launches operation to retake IS-held city of Fallujah

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the beginning of military operations to retake the Islamic State-held held city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in a televised address on Sunday night.

Iraqi forces are “approaching a moment of great victory” against the Islamic State group, said al-Abadi, who was surrounded by top military commanders from the Ministry of Defense and the country’s elite counterterrorism forces.

However, Iraqi forces are expected to face a complicated fight to push IS out of Fallujah, which is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad, and has been under the militants’ control for more than two years.

Asked about the Iraqi announcement on plans to retake Falliujah, the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon did not immediately comment.

During the Iraq War, Fallujah was an insurgent stronghold and the site of the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War. In November 2004, U.S. forces led a coalition attack against several thousand insurgents in Fallujah in which thousands of buildings were destroyed in house-to-house fighting. More than 80 U.S. troops were killed along with an estimated 2,000 insurgents.

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Egypt sends submarine to hunt for crashed jet’s black boxes

CAIRO — Egypt sent a submarine Sunday to join the hunt for the flight recorders from the EgyptAir jetliner that crashed in the Mediterranean and killed all 66 people aboard, while hundreds of Coptic Christian mourners filled a church in Cairo to pray for their relatives among the dead.

Mounting evidence pointed to a sudden and dramatic catastrophe that led to Thursday’s crash of Flight 804 from Paris to Cairo, although Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said it “will take time” to establish what happened aboard the Airbus A320.

In his first public comments since the crash, el-Sissi cautioned against premature speculation.

“It is very, very important to us to establish the circumstances that led to the crash of that aircraft,” el-Sissi said in remarks broadcast live on Egyptian TV. “There is not one scenario that we can exclusively subscribe to. … All scenarios are possible.”

A submarine belonging to the Oil Ministry was headed to the site about 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria to join the search, el-Sissi said. The vessel can operate at a depth of 3,000 meters (9,800 feet), he said.

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Clinton shrugs, sees benefits in Trump’s personal attacks

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton has a message for Donald Trump: keep on talking.

She’s just weeks away from wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination, and friends, aides and supporters describe a candidate who isn’t particularly rattled by what she expects will be Trump’s increasingly direct attacks on her marriage and husband’s personal indiscretions.

In fact, Clinton believes that she can turn Trump’s deeply personal assaults to her benefit, they say, particularly among suburban women who could be crucial to her hopes in the fall. Her plan is never to engage in any back-and-forth over the scandals. Instead, she’ll merely cast him as a bully and talk about policy.

“I don’t care what he says about me, but I do resent what he says about other people, other successful women, who have worked hard, who have done their part,” she told an audience in Louisville, Kentucky, this month.

Trump has made clear that nothing is off-limits. He described one of the allegations of past sexual misconduct involving Bill Clinton as a rape.

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Clinton, Sanders duel over Latino vote in California

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bernie Sanders’ image gazes out from a corner storefront in Boyle Heights, a Hispanic enclave known for its plump burritos and a plaza where mariachis strum guitars. It’s here that his campaign is going house to house to cut into Hillary Clinton’s advantage with Latino voters.

The oversized painting of the silver-haired Sanders was created by local artists. Perched in a front window, it’s a centerpiece in an art gallery-turned-unofficial campaign office, where owner Mercedes Hart displays an array of T-shirts, lapel buttons — even pink underwear — bearing the Vermont senator’s name.

Out front, Sanders campaign workers have set up a table to register voters and organize volunteers, who will go out to knock on doors and stuff mailboxes with campaign literature.

“I don’t ever feel like I believe politicians, but I believe him,” says Hart, 35, who lived for years in Mexico. Like many Sanders’ devotees, she is a first-time voter, taken up by his concern for workaday Americans in an economy divided by haves and have-nots.

Visitors to her gallery are greeted by a sign above the door featuring a clenched fist and the slogan “Viva Bernie.” It’s just one snapshot of the tough Democratic presidential campaign playing out in the nation’s largest state before the June 7 primary, even as Clinton appears to have a near-lock on the nomination.

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Boycott over LGBT law impacts more than just the music fans

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Stagehand Kery Eller doesn’t own any Bruce Springsteen albums, but he would smash them if he did.

Eller says he expected to earn at least $3,000 working the sold-out Springsteen concert and other high-profile shows around the state before artists canceled the events in protest over North Carolina’s new LGBT law.

Eller and about 100 members of the local union of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees are among the many workers and businesses caught in the crossfire of the national debate over LGBT rights and feeling the economic shockwaves from the growing number of canceled shows. Hotels, restaurants, bars and even community groups who work arena concession stands say they are suffering from the boycott.

“It’s my livelihood; it’s where I make my money,” Eller said. “It’s not just hurting the entertainment industry. It’s hurting our state overall, period. And I’m not talking politically at all.”

The wide-reaching law that directs transgender people to use the public bathroom that aligns with the sex on their birth certificate was signed by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in March. Since then, Pearl Jam, violinist Itzhak Perlman, Ringo Starr and Cirque Du Soleil have canceled. On Friday, the pop group Maroon 5 became the latest entertainer to decide to skip the state. Other acts performed but donated proceeds from their shows to groups fighting the law.

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Police, soldiers swarm Mexico’s Acapulco, killings continue

ACAPULCO, Mexico— Along with beach towels or sandals, there’s a new popular beach accessory that says a lot about the violence gripping this once-glamorous resort: a small black leather tote hanging from the neck or shoulders of some men. It’s not a man-bag, exactly; it holds a small pistol.

“When I saw you guys standing outside my office, I almost went for my bag,” said one businessman who lives in terror after getting death threats and extortion demands by criminal gangs at his office four blocks from the water. “I’m in fear for my life.”

Death can strike anywhere in Acapulco these days: A sarong vendor was slain on the beach in January by a gunman who escaped on a Jet Ski. Another man was gunned down while enjoying a beer at a seaside restaurant. In the hillside slums that ring the city, a 15-year-old girl’s body was found chopped into pieces and wrapped in a blanket, her severed head in a bucket nearby with a hand-lettered sign from a drug gang.

The upsurge in killings has made Acapulco one of Mexico’s most violent places, scaring away what international tourism remained and recently prompting the U.S. government to bar its employees from traveling here for any reason.

In response, Mexico has lined the city’s coastal boulevard with heavily armed police and soldiers, turning Acapulco into a high-profile test case for a security strategy that the government has used elsewhere: When homicides spike, flood the area with troops.

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Spears kicks off Billboard Awards, Weeknd wins 1st award

Britney Spears kicked off the 2016 Billboard Music Awards — clearly lip syncing — with a performance that featured several of her hits and some of her signature dance moves.

Spears performed songs like “I’m a Slave 4 U” and “Toxic” in a shimmery red number, removing her jacket to reveal her toned body. She walked from stage to stage, grinding on top of a large guitar during “I Love Rock N Roll” at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Ciara and Ludacris are hosting the show, and the rapper opened the show by poking fun at the recent Academy Awards, which featured all-white acting nominees.

“Unlike the Oscars we actually have black nominees,” Ludacris said to laughs.

The first award of the night — for top hot 100 artist — went to The Weeknd, the night’s top nominee.

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Elderly book end-of-life talks once labeled ‘death panels’

HACKENSACK, N.J. — The doctor got right down to business after Herbert Diamond bounded in. A single green form before her, she had some questions for the agile 88-year-old: about comas and ventilators, about feeding tubes and CPR, about intense and irreversible suffering.

“You want treatments as long as you are going to have good quality of life?” Dr. Manisha Parulekar asked. The retired accountant nodded.

“And at that point,” she continued, “you would like to focus more on comfort, right?” There was no hesitation before his soft-spoken reply: “Right.”

Scenes like this have been spreading across the U.S. in the months since Medicare started paying for conversations on end-of-life planning. Seven years after that very idea spurred fears of “death panels,” supporters hope lingering doubts will fade.

“The more and more that that happens, the more patients, families and doctors will become comfortable with it,” said Dr. Joe Rotella, chief medical officer of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine . “Any distrust people have about, ‘What is this?’ really disappears when patients sit down and find out this is about empowering them.”

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Absentee ballot count to decide Austrian election

VIENNA — With direct ballots counted but a final result still outstanding, Sunday’s elections for Austria’s presidency were too close to call a winner between a right-wing politician and a challenger whose views stand in stark opposition to his rival’s anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic message.

The direct votes gave right-winger Norbert Hofer 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent for Alexander Van der Bellen, a Greens politician running as an independent. But final projections that included still-to-be-counted absentee ballots put each at 50 percent with Van der Bellen narrowly ahead.

Those nearly 700,000 absentee ballots will be counted Monday, making them the likely decider by a minuscule portion of votes, considering that 4.48 million people voted directly Sunday.

Candidates backed by the long-dominant Social Democratic and centrist People’s Party were eliminated in last month’s first round, which means neither party would hold the presidency for the first time since the end of the war. That reflects disillusionment with the status quo, and their approach to the migrant crisis and other issues.

But Sunday’s voting revealed a profound split over which direction the nation should now take, particularly over migration and the future of the European Union.