Officials in nearly a dozen states are preparing to notify families that a crucial health insurance program for low-income children is running out of money for the first time since its creation two decades ago, putting coverage for many at risk by the end of the year.
Congress missed a Sept. 30 deadline to extend funding for CHIP, as the Children’s Health Insurance Program is known. Nearly 9 million youngsters and 370,000 pregnant women nationwide receive care because of it.
Many states have enough money to keep their individual programs afloat for at least a few months, but five could run out in late December if lawmakers do not act. Others will start to exhaust resources the following month.
Flynn’s lawyer shuts down communications with Trump’s team, a sign he may be cooperating with Mueller probe
A lawyer for former national security adviser Michael Flynn informed an attorney for President Trump this week that he can no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, a sign that Flynn may be preparing to cooperate in the probe, people familiar with the investigation said.
The call from Flynn lawyer Robert Kelner to Trump attorney John Dowd came Wednesday evening and is a potentially ominous sign for Trump and his close associates. Before this week, Kelner had been communicating with lawyers for Trump.
The split suggests that Flynn, who has been a top target of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team, may be looking to share information with the prosecutor and his team.
Burma has committed ‘ethnic cleansing,’ U.S. says. Where does Aung San Suu Kyi go from here?
During the three months that Burma has been rocked by a refugee exodus the United States has now deemed “ethnic cleansing,” de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi for the most part has remained hunkered down in her office in this capital city, hewed out of the jungle just over a decade ago by the military regime.
Witnesses have alleged that the military and Buddhist mobs raped women, executed civilians and burned more than 200 villages in a crackdown that followed an attack by Rohingya extremists Aug. 25, causing more than 600,000 Muslim Rohingyato flee into neighboring Bangladesh.
But in interviews here, officials and party leaders close to her not only deny the magnitude of the crisis but that civilian killings and other atrocities took place at all.
The Guardian
'America's dirty little secret': the Texas town that has been without running water for decades
It’s a sweltering Saturday in October and Pastor Eugene Keahey is becoming agitated. His flock live in a Texas town that hasn’t had running water in 30 years and the donated bottled water they rely upon is in short supply.
“We got six cases of water from a donor but two have already gone in the last hour,” said Keahey, eyeing the line of people waiting for their weekly handout of food and water from the Mount Zion Baptist church in Sandbranch, a largely African American community that lies 20 minutes and a world away from Dallas. […]
“We don’t have water here and you know why?” asked Ivory Hall, a spry 83-year-old black man who deftly slaps my arm as he makes his point. “The pigment of my skin. If I were white like you I bet they’d have water down here.”
Argentina: grief and anger after 'explosion' near missing submarine
The families of the crew of a missing Argentinian navy submarine have reacted with grief and then anger to the possibility that an explosion hit the submarine around the time it sent its last signal on 15 November.
An abnormal sound detected in the South Atlantic ocean was “consistent with an explosion”, the navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said. The navy did not have enough information to say what the cause of the explosion could have been or whether the vessel – the ARA San Juan – might have been attacked, he said.
Relatives of the submarine’s 44 crew members, camped out at a naval base in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, had been largely optimistic before Thursday’s announcement, which prompted cries of anguish and calls for authorities to be held to account.
Manus Island police use long metal poles to beat refugees and asylum seekers
Papua New Guinean police have used batons to beat refugees and asylum seekers in the Manus Island detention centre, as they continue their operation to clear the decommissioned camp.
Video shot within the centre on Friday morning showed officers from PNG’s mobile squad threatening and hitting refugees with long metal poles as they dragged men out of the centre. Other pictures showed immigration officials – in marked yellow T-shirts – physically moving refugees out of the centre.
The effort to physically clear the camp – codenamed Operation Helpim Friends - began on Thursday with about 50 refugees and asylum seekers taken from the detention centre to other accommodation on Manus Island – most of which is not yet fully built, without running water, electricity or security fences.
Reuters
China's trade with North Korea sinks in October after U.N. sanctions
China’s trade with North Korea fell to $334.9 million in October, its lowest since February as imports sank to their weakest in years, data showed on Thursday, the latest sign that tough new sanctions cut business with its isolated neighbor.
The total is down almost 20 percent from September and compares with $525.2 million a year ago, according to customs’ data.
The data represents the first whole month since the latest United Nations penalties came into force on Sept. 5, banning Pyongyang from selling coal, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood abroad.
Irish government on verge of collapse ahead of EU Brexit summit
The Irish government was on the verge of collapse on Thursday after the party whose votes Prime Minister Leo Varadkar depends on to pass legislation said it would seek to remove the deputy prime minister in a breach of their cooperation agreement.
The crisis comes three weeks ahead of a European Union summit in which the Irish government has an effective veto on whether Britain’s talks on leaving the bloc progress as it determines if EU concerns about the future of the Irish border have been met.
In a row that escalated rapidly, the opposition Fianna Fail party said it would put a motion of no confidence in Deputy Prime Minister Frances Fitzgerald before parliament on Tuesday over her handling of a legal case involving a police whistleblower.
Mnangagwa the "Crocodile" to be sworn in as Zimbabwe's president
Emmerson Mnangagwa will cap a stunning political comeback when he is sworn in as Zimbabwe’s president on Friday, bringing the final curtain down on the 37-year rule of Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe, 93, who had led Zimbabwe from independence in 1980, stepped down on Tuesday after the army seized power and the ruling ZANU-PF party turned against him.
CNN
Can the world's mightiest naval fleet survive the perfect storm?
[…] Just two days after the three carriers -- the USS Ronald Reagan, USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Nimitz, and their multi-ship strike groups -- wrapped up four days of war games off Korea, the USS Ronald Reagan, with its air wing and three guided-missile destroyers, began a 10-day exercise with Japanese naval units off Okinawa.
While the US exercises are intended to reassure Asian allies and to show North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the United States will not be intimidated by Pyongyang's testing of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, the moves also highlight concerns that the 7th Feet is being stretched too thin.
The toll of operations in the Pacific has been grim this year.
Two US guided-missile destroyers, USS Fitzgerald and USS John S McCain, suffered collisions with merchant ships, leaving 17 US sailors dead and the two warships needing hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs.
The accidents, off Japan and Singapore respectively, also left the Navy wondering how two of the most sophisticated ships on the seas couldn't even navigate crowded shipping lanes.
Loss of the night: Light pollution rising rapidly on a global scale
Artificial lighting at night is contributing to an alarming increase in light pollution, both in amount and in brightness, affecting places all over the world, a new study has found.
Some regions have showed a steady increase in light pollution aligned with economic development, but more developed nations that were thought to be "going dark" by switching to energy-saving LEDs showed no apparent decline in their rates of light pollution.
Globally, there has been a push toward more energy- and cost-efficient light sources, such as LEDs, but this has directly contributed to an alarming increase in light pollution, the researchers believe.
'Where is the world?': Libya responds to outrage over slave auctions
Libyan officials have denounced the migrant slave auctions exposed in a CNN investigation, but claim more support is required from the global community to tackle the issue.
The United Nations-backed Libyan Government of National Accord, or GNA, said it's keen to address violations against illegal immigrants but called upon regional and global partners to provide assistance.
Libya "is going through difficult times which affected its own citizens as well. It is, therefore, not fair to assume responsibility for the consequences of this immigration, which everyone unanimously agreed that addressing this phenomenon exceeds the national capacities," the GNA statement read.
Boston Globe
Far from Puerto Rico, islanders reflect on Thanksgiving
Some of the thousands of residents of Puerto Rico displaced by Hurricane Maria celebrated Thanksgiving in Massachusetts Thursday, some with family, and others at the invitation of kind strangers. But as they gave thanks over tables laden with food, many let their thoughts drift to home 1,500 miles away.
“I have so many feelings, said Jessica Labiosa, who was celebrating Thanksgiving in Hyannis with her sister and her family.
Just a few weeks ago, Labiosa and two of her four children were still in a rural part of Puerto Rico, with no water and dwindling supplies. Her two older children are in Massachusetts, and one of them arranged for his boss at Wendy’s to pay for their trip here. They could repay him by working at the restaurant.
Earther
Real-Time Global Warming Clock
If there is one lesson of 2017, it’s that we are all going to die. But while nobody can predict when the bombs will drop or when billionaires will siphon your young blood, the Debbie Downers at Oxford did build a real time global warming index that lets you watch as we creep closer and closer to planetary heat death.
Gaze upon it and let the familiar wave anxiety wash over you. Go ahead, indulge those dark feelings. Click the link. I’ll wait.