NEWS OF THE DAY
_1 Anti-Semitism: Violent attacks on Jews dropped for a second straight year in 2016, but other forms of anti-Semitism are on the rise worldwide, particularly on U.S. university campuses, according to a report released Sunday. Researchers at Tel Aviv University said assaults targeting Jews, vandalism and other violent incidents fell 12 percent last year. They recorded 361 cases compared with 410 in 2015, which had already been the lowest number in a decade. On U.S. university campuses, there was a 45 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents, mostly insults and harassment of Jewish students, the report said. The university’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry releases the report every year on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust memorial day, which began Sunday at sundown.
_2 Author shot: Author and conservationist Kuki Gallmann was shot at her ranch in Kenya and airlifted for treatment after herders invaded in search of pasture to save their animals from drought, officials said Sunday. Gallmann, known for her bestselling book “I Dreamed of Africa,” which became a movie by the same name starring Kim Basinger, was patrolling the ranch in Laikipia when she was shot in the stomach, police said. British Army medics attended to the 73-year-old before she was airlifted to the capital, Nairobi, where she underwent surgery and was in stable condition. Herders have been desperately waiting for seasonal rains that were to start last month to ease the drought and conflicts over grazing land in which more than 30 people have died.
_3 Traffickers killed: Two top drug traffickers were killed in shootouts with federal forces in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, authorities said. The Tamaulipas security spokesman’s office said the men were killed Saturday in separate confrontations. Julian Loisa Salinas, better known as “Comandante Toro,” was killed in a clash with marines in Reynosa. Loisa Salinas reportedly was the Gulf cartel’s leader in the area. Also Saturday, the local leader for the rival Zetas cartel in Ciudad Victoria was killed in a shootout. He was tentatively identified as Francisco “Pancho” Carreon.
_4 Envoy to U.S.: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has named one of his sons, an air force pilot who has taken part in coalition strikes against the Islamic State group, as the kingdom’s new ambassador to the U.S. The appointment of Prince Khaled bin Salman to Washington signals the kingdom’s eagerness to strengthen bilateral ties under President Trump. Saudi-U.S. relations had cooled under the Obama administration after Washington pursued a nuclear accord with Shiite-ruled Iran that the Sunni-ruled kingdom strongly opposed. Relations with the Riyadh have improved since Trump took office.
_5 Somalia bombing: A roadside bomb in a remote town in Somalia’s semiautonomous state of Puntland killed eight soldiers and injured three others Sunday, police said. The blast targeted a military convoy in Galgala. Security forces have been battling Islamic State-linked fighters in the region. The alShabab extremist group claimed responsibility for the blast. _6 Ukraine violence: An American member of an arms monitoring group in eastern Ukraine died Sunday and two others were wounded after their vehicle was blown up by a mine in the separatist Luhansk region. The head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called for an investigation. Rebels and the Ukrainian government have been fighting since 2014 in a war that has killed more than 9,900 people.