U.N. OFFICIAL: NOT SAFE YET FOR ROHINGYA
It is not safe for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in refugee camps in Bangladesh to begin returning to Myanmar, a senior United Nations official said Thursday. Although many Rohingya want to return to their villages, UNICEF deputy executive director Justin Forsyth said no one he met during visits to Bangladesh’s refugee camps said they would go now.
At least 41 killed, dozens injured in South Korea hospital fire.
SEOUL, SOUTH
At least 41 people were killed and more than 40 others were injured Friday in a fire that engulfed a hospital, local media reported. The blaze was believed to have broken out early in the morning in the emergency room on the ground floor of the hospital in the southeastern city of Miryang.
Justice Department sides with conservative groups in free speech lawsuit against university.
The Justice Department plans to file a statement of interest siding with conservative groups that have sued the University of California, alleging administrators created logistical and other hurdles that forced the cancellation or modification of events with rightleaning speakers.
Mexican police find 100 pounds of fentanyl in multi-drug stash.
Police found a multi-drug shipment that included an astonishing 100 pounds of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, officials said Thursday. Fentanyl can be fatal in doses of just a few milligrams. To put the size of the haul in perspective, a seizure last year of 4.5 pounds of fentanyl in Columbus, Ohio, was said by prosecutors to be enough to kill the entire population of the city of 860,000.
Police say man cited for attack on Flavor Flav at casino.
VEGAS» A 44year-old LAS man who served prison time for manslaughter faces a misdemeanor battery charge in an attack involving entertainer Flavor Flav at the South Point Hotel Casino
T and Spa, police said Thursday. he emailed response The rapper and reality-TV from the Guggenheim’s star was treated at a chief curator hospital for minor injuries. to the White House
was polite but firm: The museum could not accommodate a request to “borrow” a In another painting by Vincent Van Gogh for apparent consequence of President Donald and Melania the #MeToo movement, Trump’s private living quarters. last year’s best actor Oscar Instead, wrote the curator, Nancy winner Casey Affleck will Spector, another piece was not attend the Academy available, one that was nothing Awards. The “Manchester by the Sea” actor faced sexual harassment allegations in 2010 in two public lawsuits during the production of the mockumentary “I’m Still Here.” The lawsuits were settled for undisclosed sums and Affleck has said that the terms of the settlement prevent him from discussing the matter.
Casey Affleck will not attend Academy Awards. Actor Barnes, Tinky Winky in “Teletubbies,” dies at 52.
LONDON» British actor Simon Shelton Barnes, who played Tinky Winky in the children’s television series “Teletubbies,” has died. He was 52.
Barnes played one of four gentle, brightly colored characters in the toddler-centric show between 1998 and 2001. It became the surprising subject of controversy in 1999 when a newspaper published by evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell said Tinky Winky’s purple color, triangle antenna and handbag indicated the character was gay.
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND» President Donald Trump barreled into a global summit Thursday in the Alps, threatening to stop U.S. aid to the Palestinians and dismissing as a “false rumor” the idea that there are tensions in the U.S. relationship with Britain.
Trump’s debut appearance at the glitzy World Economic Forum was hotly anticipated, with longtime attendees of the free-trade-focused event wondering how the “America First” president would fit in.
Trump framed his visit as a sign of positive things happening for the U.S. economy: “When I decided to come to Davos, I didn’t think in terms of elitist or globalist. I thought in terms of lots of people that want to invest lots of money, and they’re all coming back to the United States. like “Landscape with Snow,” the lovely 1888 Van Gogh rendering of a man in a black hat walking along a path in Arles with his dog.
The curator’s alternative: an 18karat, fully functioning, solid gold toilet — an interactive work titled “America” that critics have described as pointed satire aimed at the excess of wealth in this country.
For a year, the Guggenheim had exhibited “America” — the creation of contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan — in a public restroom on the museum’s fifth floor for visitors to use.
But the exhibit was over, and the toilet was available “should the President and First Lady have any interest in installing it in the White House,” Spector wrote in an email obtained by The Washington Post.
The artist “would like to offer it to the White House for a longterm loan,” wrote Spector, who has been critical of Trump. “It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care.”
RUSSIA PROBE
Sara Eaton, a Guggenheim spokeswoman, confirmed that Spector wrote the email Sept. 15 to Donna Hayashi Smith of the White House’s Office of the Curator.
The White House did not respond to inquiries about the matter.
Cattelan, reached by phone in New York, referred questions about the toilet to the Guggenheim, saying with a chuckle, “It’s a very delicate subject.” He declined to reveal the cost of the gold it took to create “America.”