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blog

Trump v. Hillary?, Bin Laden Will, Livestream Eclipse

Trump v. Hillary?, Bin Laden Will, Livestream Eclipse

TRUMP AND HILLARY SCORE BIG ON SUPER TUESDAY

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton moved closer to a presidential face-to-face, with each winning seven of the 11 states holding primaries on the so-called Super Tuesday. Trump took home Republican primary wins in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia, while Clinton won Democratic contests in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

On the Republican side, Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas and Oklahoma while Marco Rubio garnered his first victory in Minnesota. Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders won his home state of Vermont along with Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma. So far, 15 states have chosen their candidates, and 35 are yet to vote.

Read more about the winners and losers from Super Tuesday on the Washington Post.


BIN LADEN LAST WILL REVEALED

The U.S. intelligence community has released 113 documents seized during the 2011 raid on al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, TIME reports. One of the letters revealed Tuesday was described by intelligence officials as a last will, in which Bin Laden requests $29 million of his fortune to be used in the global jihad. According to national intelligence translators, the one-page letter states "I hope, for my brothers, sisters, and maternal aunts, to obey my will and to spend all the money that I have left in Sudan on jihad, for the sake of Allah." In another letter addressed to his father in August 2008, the al-Qaeda leader expressed worries about being assassinated. "If I am to be killed, pray for me a lot and give continuous charities in my name, as I will be in great need for support to reach the permanent home."


SNAPSHOT

Photo: Bill Ingalls/NASA/ZUMA

The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft touched down near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, bringing Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov of Roscosmos back to Earth. Kelly and Kornienko completed a record year-long mission aboard the International Space Station. Volkov returned late Tuesday night after spending six months on the station.


GULF STATES: HEZBOLLAH "TERRORIST" GROUP

Deepening the divide between Shia and Sunni Muslims, the Sunni-dominated regimes of the Gulf States have officially labeled the pro-Iranian Shia group Hezbollah a "terrorist" organization. Read more from Al Arabiya.


WORLDCRUNCH-TO-GO

When legendary 87-year-old film composer Ennio Morricone finally won his first Oscar, he chose to speak in his native language. It was a subtly powerful message back home in Italy, Massimo Gramellini writes for Italian daily La Stampa: "... even if his knowledge of the language of Shakespeare and Tarantino was limited, he would have had no trouble getting someone else to help jot down a few lines. Instead, he chose to use Italian. He did so with self-knowledge and without any sort of ostentatious pride, but also with no sign of that inferiority complex typical of many provincial Italians, who jump at the chance to use any word with a whiff of foreign exoticism, or of certain politicians who fill their mouths with phrases such as "stepchild adoption," botching the pronunciation and not knowing the meaning. It was striking to hear our language in the temple of the Hollywood gods, from Charlize Theron to Steven Spielberg, and to see them all rise to their feet to honor the Maestro.

Read the full article, Ennio Morricone, The Other Italian.


U.S. CAPTURES ISIS OPERATIVE

U.S. Special Forces have captured a highly ranked ISIS operative in Iraq. U.S. defense officials describe the capture late yesterday as a crucial development in the effort to curb the threat of ISIS, but it also raises questions about how to manage a plausibly growing number of detainees, reports the New York Times reports. Due to the recently deployed 200-member Special Operations team in Iraq, the Pentagon is now faced with the prospect of handling more detentions and interrogations.


ON THIS DAY


From the Romanov Dynasty to the first NBA All-Star Game, here is your 57-second shot of history!


CHINESE SHIPS SEIZE DISPUTED ATOLL

Philippine officials report that China has stationed several ships near a disputed atoll in the South China Sea, blocking Filipino fishermen from accessing traditional fishing waters, Reuters reports this morning. China had deployed coast guard boats and five warships to Jackson Atoll, said Eugenio Bito-onon Jr, the mayor of a nearby Philippine-administered Island in the Spratlys. The Spratly Islands are a highly contested archipelago in the South China Sea, a resource-rich region and critical shipping lane linking North Asia to Europe, South Asia and the Middle East. The U.S. has expressed concerns about China militarizing the islands which may threaten the freedom of navigation in the South. "China must not pursue militarization of the South China Sea," U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in a speech in San Francisco on Tuesday. "Specific actions will have specific consequences."


MY GRAND-PERE'S WORLD



ONLINE SOLAR ECLIPSE

Unless you live in Indonesia, you won't be able to see today's total solar eclipse. Thankfully, the Slooh robotic telescope will livestream the whole event here.

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Society

Brazil's Evangelical Surge Threatens Survival Of Native Afro-Brazilian Faith

Followers of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion in four traditional communities in the country’s northeast are resisting pressure to convert to evangelical Christianity.

image of Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Agencia Publica
Géssica Amorim

Among a host of images of saints and Afro-Brazilian divinities known as orixás, Abel José, 42, an Umbanda priest, lights some candles, picks up his protective beads and adjusts the straw hat that sits atop his head. He is preparing to treat four people from neighboring villages who have come to his house in search of spiritual help and treatment for health ailments.

The meeting takes place discreetly, in a small room that has been built in the back of the garage of his house. Abel lives in the quilombo of Sítio Bredos, home to 135 families. The community, located in the municipality of Betânia of Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco, is one of the municipality’s four remaining communities that have been certified as quilombos, the word used to refer to communities formed in the colonial era by enslaved Africans and/or their descendents.

In these villages there are almost no residents who still follow traditional Afro-Brazilian religions. Abel, Seu Joaquim Firmo and Dona Maura Maria da Silva are the sole remaining followers of Umbanda in the communities in which they live. A wave of evangelical missionary activity has taken hold of Betânia’s quilombos ever since the first evangelical church belonging to the Assembleia de Deus group was built in the quilombo of Bredos around 20 years ago. Since then, other evangelical, pentecostal, and neo-pentecostal churches and congregations have established themselves in the area. Today there are now nine temples spread among the four communities, home to roughly 900 families.

The temples belong to the Assembleia de Deus, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the World Church of God's Power, the latter of which has over 6,000 temples spread across Brazil and was founded by the apostle and televangelist Valdemiro Santiago, who became infamous during the pandemic for trying to sell beans that he had blessed as a Covid-19 cure. Assembleia de Deus alone, who are the largest pentecostal denomination in the world, have built five churches in Betânia’s quilombos.


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