ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

November 30, 2016 (San Diego's East County) - East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

General news

• Students have ‘dismaying’ inability to tell fake news from real, study finds  (NPR)
• Great Smoky Mountains fires leaves scenes of great destruction(Reuters)
• Largest bank in Norway sells its assets in Dakota Access pipeline (Eco Watch)
• Oklahoma town sues energy companies over earthquakes (CS Monitor)
• Blue Feed, Red Feed (Wall Street Journal)

Politics

• U.S. government officially accuses Russia of hacking campaign to interfere with election (Washington Post)
• Libertarian Party Breaks Half a Million Registered Voters (Reason)
• Will Trump go after marijuana laws? (Healthline – Jamie Reno)
• Sanctuary city mayors prepare for clash with Trump administration over immigration (Fox)
• Trump supporter:  Japanese internment `precedent’ for  Muslim  registry to ‘protect America’(NBC)
• Senate Democrats just went nuclear and changed the filibuster. Here’s why. (Mother Jones)
• Trump will not pursue Clinton investigation, campaign manager says(SD Union-Tribune)
• Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest continue to mount (Huffington Post)

WORLD

•  Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S, Dies at 90 (New York Times)
• Fukushima nuclear decommission, compensation costs to almost double: media (Reuters)
• Wildfire roars through Israeli city,  forcing thousands to evacuate (AP)
• Mexico mass grave:  Severed heads and 32 bodies found (BBC)
• Thwarted French attack was slated for December 1 at key Paris sites(Reuters)
• New quake tests resilience and faith in Japan’s nuclear facilities(New York Times)
• Russia Withdraws Support For International Criminal Court (NPR)
• Prosecutors To Investigate South Korean President In Corruption Scandal(NPR)
• Virtual reality to aid Auschwitz war trials of concentration camp guards(BBC)
• Gigantic Shield Moves Into Place To Cover Exploded Chernobyl Reactor(NPR)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more”and scroll down.

U.S.

General news

Students have ‘dismaying’ inability to tell fake news from real, study finds  (NPR)

Stanford researchers assessed students from middle school to college and found they struggled to distinguish ads from articles, neutral sources from biased ones and fake accounts from real ones.  

Great Smoky Mountains fires leaves scenes of great destruction(Reuters)

Officials said on Tuesday that "the worst is over" for two small Tennessee resort towns in the Great Smoky Mountains where wildfires destroyed or damaged some 150 homes and other structures, forced thousands to flee and threatened country music star Dolly Parton's theme park, Dollywood.

Largest bank in Norway sells its assets in Dakota Access pipeline (Eco Watch)

The largest bank in Norway, DNB, has announced that it has sold its assets in the Dakota Access Pipeline, accounting for 10 percent of the total funding for the project. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that DNB was "reconsidering its participation" in the financing of the pipeline if "concerns raised by Native American tribes against its construction are not addressed."

Oklahoma town sues energy companies over earthquakes (CS Monitor)

The town of Pawnee, Okla., is bringing a class action lawsuit against oil and gas companies, saying the companies caused more than 50 earthquakes by injecting wastewater into the ground.

Blue Feed, Red Feed (Wall Street Journal)

... as over six out of 10 American adults now turn to their algorithm-driven social media feeds to get news, according to Pew Research, conservatives and liberals often have radically conflicting sources of information, as a Wall Street Journal side-by-side graphic analysis of blue feeds and red feeds recently showed.

Politics

U.S. government officially accuses Russia of hacking campaign to interfere with election (Washington Post)

… “The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” said a joint statement from the two agencies. “. . . These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.”   The public finger-pointing was welcomed by senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers, who also said they now expect the administration to move to punish the Kremlin as part of an effort to deter further acts by its hackers.

Libertarian Party Breaks Half a Million Registered Voters (Reason)

Libertarians are now the first nationally-organized Party in American history besides the Republicans and Democrats to break a half-million registered voters.

Will Trump go after marijuana laws? (Healthline – Jamie Reno)

The president-elect has sent mixed signals on his views on legalizing marijuana. His choice of attorney general may determine what his administration does.

Sanctuary city mayors prepare for clash with Trump administration over immigration (Fox)

Democratic mayors in so-called "sanctuary cities" are poised for a major clash with President-elect Donald Trump as city officials from Los Angeles to Washington vow not to cooperate with his administration on deportation orders for illegal immigrants. Trump's election has spurred mayors and police chiefs in nearly a dozen major cities to re-affirm their "sanctuary" status, putting them in direct conflict with Trump's immigration enforcement push -- and effectively daring him to slash sanctuary-city funding as he promised during the campaign. 

Trump supporter:  Japanese internment `precedent’ for  Muslim  registry to ‘protect America’(NBC)

A former Navy SEAL and supporter of President-elect Donald Trump cited World War II internment camps as a precedent for Trump's proposed Muslim registry during an interview Wednesday night on Fox News.

Senate Democrats just went nuclear and changed the filibuster. Here’s why. (Mother Jones)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats changed the Senate's rules Thursday, freeing President Barack Obama to staff his administration with the people he wants and fill the federal bench with judges of his choosing...

Trump will not pursue Clinton investigation, campaign manager says(San Diego Union-Tribune)

President-elect Donald Trump has decided that his administration will not pursue criminal investigations related to former rival Hillary Clinton's private email server or her family foundation, his campaign manager said Tuesday.

Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest continue to mount (Huffington Post)

When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe became the first foreign head of state to meet in person with President-elect Donald Trump, a photograph taken of the official event at Trump Tower in Manhattan showed a curious attendee: Trump’s daughter Ivanka. The appearance of Ivanka Trump, who is executive vice president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization, raises alarm bells for those concerned about the unprecedented potential for conflicts of interest involving the incoming president.

WORLD

 Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S, Dies at 90 (New York Times)

Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba’s maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died Friday.

Fukushima nuclear decommission, compensation costs to almost double: media (Reuters)



Japan's trade ministry has almost doubled the estimated cost of compensation for the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and decommissioning of the damaged Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant to more than 20 trillion yen ($177.51 billion), the Nikkei business daily reported on Sunday.

Wildfire roars through Israeli city,  forcing thousands to evacuate (AP)

A wildfire roared through parts of Israel's third-largest city on Thursday, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes as the country's leaders raised the possibility that Arab assailants had intentionally set the blaze. Spreading quickly due to dry, windy weather, the fire raced through Haifa's northern neighborhoods, sending panicked residents fleeing from the area.

Mexico mass grave:  Severed heads and 32 bodies found (BBC)

Mexican authorities have discovered 32 bodies and nine heads hidden in mass graves in a southern region plagued by violence from drug cartels. Investigators exhumed the remains of 31 men and one woman from a hillside in Zitlala, where turf wars between rival criminal gangs are common.

Thwarted French attack was slated for December 1 at key Paris sites(Reuters)



Suspects arrested last weekend in France under anti-terrorism measures had been planning to launch attacks on Dec. 1 at important and landmark sites in and around Paris, according to a source close to the inquiry.

 

New quake tests resilience and faith in Japan’s nuclear facilities(New York Times)

There was no avoiding fearful memories of the Japanese nuclear disaster of 2011 on Tuesday morning after a powerful earthquake off the coast of Fukushima caused a cooling system in a nuclear plant to stop, leaving more than 2,500 spent uranium fuel rods at risk of overheating. But this time, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, the utility that operates three nuclear plants, restored the cooling pump at the Fukushima Daini plant in about an hour and a half.

Russia Withdraws Support For International Criminal Court (NPR)

Russia is withdrawing its signature from the treaty establishing the ICC, after the court released a report calling the 2014 seizure of Crimea from Ukraine an "international armed conflict."

Prosecutors To Investigate South Korean President In Corruption Scandal(NPR)

A leadership crisis continues in South Korea, where prosecutors announced Sunday that President Park Geun-hye will be investigated as a suspect in a growing corruption and cronyism scandal.

Virtual reality to aid Auschwitz war trials of concentration camp guards(BBC)

The Auschwitz concentration camp has been recreated in virtual reality to help in war crime trials of former guards.

Gigantic Shield Moves Into Place To Cover Exploded Chernobyl Reactor(NPR)

It's billed as the "largest movable land-based structure ever built," and it is an important step toward ultimately dismantling the reactor. The 1986 blast was the world's worst nuclear disaster.