Photo: Arapahoe Co. Sheriff’s Department/ZUMAPRESS
GREEK BAILOUT: NEW FUNDING, GERMAN ANGST
The European Central Bank (ECB) is set to increase its aid to Greek banks by 900 million euros for a week, after the Greek parliament approved a new bailout program.
- “It’s uncontroversial that debt relief is necessary, and I think that nobody has ever disputed that,” the BBC quoted ECB President Mario Draghi as saying at a press conference in Frankfurt yesterday. “The issue is what is the best form of debt relief within our framework, within our legal institutional framework. I think we should focus on this point in the coming weeks.”
- This means banks could reopen in Greece Monday for the first time in three weeks.
- Meanwhile, Germany’s parliament is debating today whether to allow Greece’s bailout deal negotiated among the Eurozone countries. It is expected to be approved despite heavy opposition from the left.
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of “predictable chaos” if the deal is rejected, Die Welt reports.
- Speaking to The Guardian, German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas attacked Merkel’s hardline stance with Greece, saying he feared that “the German government, including its social democratic faction, have gambled away in one night all the political capital that a better Germany had accumulated in half a century.”
MOTIVE UNCLEAR FOR KILLER OF 4 MARINES
FBI officials said the motive of the gunman who killed four U.S. Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, yesterday is still unclear and that it has found no link to any terror group, but local prosecutors are investigating the attack as “domestic terrorism.” The gunman who attacked a recruitment center and a naval reserve center was identified as 24-year-old Mohammad Yusuf Abdulazeez. He is also dead, although it’s still not clear whether he was killed by police or committed suicide, USA Today reports. Three other people were injured, including one in serious condition.
AURORA SHOOTER FOUND GUILTY
James Holmes, the gunman who killed 12 people and injured 70 during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises in an Aurora, Colorado, cinema in 2012, was found guilty of first-degree murder yesterday, The Denver Post reports. The trial will now enter the sentencing phase, during which prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
VERBATIM
“The government announces the liberation of Aden province,” Khaled Bahah, vice president of Yemen’s exiled government in Riyadh, wrote today on Facebook. It means the country’s second-largest city is now under control of Saudi-backed fighters, after four months of clashes with Houthi rebels. “We congratulate the people of Aden and the Republic of Yemen as a whole for what has been achieved in the last two days,” Bahah also wrote on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr.
49 KILLED IN NIGERIA MARKET BLASTS
At least 49 people were killed yesterday when a double explosion struck a busy market in Gombe, northeastern Nigeria, France 24 reports. The first bomb exploded outside a shoe shop and was followed about two minutes later by another nearby. The market was particularly busy with shoppers preparing for Eid al-Fitr celebrations marking the end of Ramadan. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the terror group Boko Haram has executed similar bombings in busy urban locations over the past few years.
$19 MILLION
Hillary Clinton has spent almost $19 million in the first three months of her presidential campaign for the 2016 election,The Washington Post reports. That represents 40% of the $47 million Clinton raised in the first quarter, a year and a half before the election.
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LOYALISTS KILLED
Six supporters of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood were killed during clashes with Cairo residents today, according to the state news agency MENA, although Reuters quotes a health ministry official as saying that they were killed during clashes with police.
WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO
Lance Armstrong has shown again he doesn’t know how to say he’s sorry (in any language), and clearly doesn’t know when he’s not bienvenu. The “welcome” has indeed been overwhelmingly nasty and negative for a much-hyped charity ride just two years after reluctantly admitting to doping, and stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles. He rode on the Tour de France route ahead of official cyclists to raise money for leukemia research. Check out the mean tweets his presence inspired.
VIDEO SHOWS REBELS SIFTING MH17 WRECKAGE
As services are held today to mark the first anniversary of the MH17 plane crash in eastern Ukraine, in which 298 people were killed, a new video shows pro-Russian separatists sifting through the wreckage and luggage of the plane’s crew and passengers. In the 17-minute footage, obtained and released by News Corp Australia, the militiamen dressed in camouflage appear confused that the aircraft, which is believed to have been shot down by a pro-Russian surface-to-air missile, is not military.
MY GRAND-PÈRE’S WORLD
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POLAR BEARS CAN’T ADAPT TO WARMER TEMPS
Scientists have found that polar bears are unable to cope with food losses caused by warmer summers in the Arctic and are simply starving, Science reports. The publication’s authors believe the plight of polar bears, which have been listed as a threatened species in the U.S. since 2008, will be grim.
ON THIS DAY
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Happy birthday to both David Hasselhoff and Disneyland. We give you today’s shot of history.
LARGEST-EVER WINGED DINOSAUR FOUND
Researchers say they have dug up the fossil of the largest-ever winged dinosaur in northeastern China, The Guardian reports. The skeleton, which is said to be remarkably well preserved, belonged to a 2-meter-long prehistoric, carnivore raptor covered in feathers, a cousin of the velociraptor, that lived 125 million years ago.
TREEMAIL
In Australia, you can now send emails to trees.