The GOP’s Round 2 is in the books. A quake shook Chile. And world leaders don’t call rock stars after all.
It’s Thursday, and here are five things to know for your new day.
CAMPAIGN 2016
Debated: Did you miss last night’s GOP presidential debate (or “Round 2” as we billed it here at CNN)? Well, here’s what you need to know: Carly Fiorina is for real; Jeb Bush was better (but not that much better) and; for once, it wasn’t all about Donald Trump. The general consensus is that Fiorina won the debate, primarily because she took Trump head-on and looked much stronger because of it. Bush showed more life than he did in the first debate, but it’s unclear if that will be enough to fire up his lumbering campaign. Trump once again dominated the first part of the debate through insults and the sheer will of his personality, but that strategy became less effective as the debate went on because the focus started to shift to — believe it or not — policy and issues. Imagine that.
CHILE QUAKE
Shook: At least five people were killed when a major earthquake — 8.3-magnitude — hit Chile yesterday. The quake produced a nearly 16-foot wave, spurring the evacuation of a 1 million people and triggering tsunami warnings as far away as California, Hawaii and New Zealand. The earthquake damaged homes, caused power outages and led to snarled traffic in Santiago, which felt the quake at rush hour.
AHMED MOHAMED
Arrested: Ahmed Mohamed has a lot of offers to weigh this morning. Meet with Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg? Do an internship at Twitter? Or just hang out at the White House with President Obama? All of these cool things happened as a result of something not so cool. Mohamed was arrested and handcuffed after some folks at his school thought the homemade clock that he brought was some type of bomb. So he was arrested, his story took over social media and voices of support for him poured in from around the world. If Mohamed does go to the White House to show the President his clock, he’ll first have to get it back from the police, who, as of last night, were still holding it as evidence.
MIGRANT CRISIS
Detoured: Yesterday refugees stuck at the Hungary-Serbia border were met with tear gas and water cannons when they tried to cross Hungary’s now-closed border. So now they are finding a new way to Germany and other nations of Western Europe: Croatia. Throngs of people are traveling west through Serbria to get to Croatia, where they are finding a warmer reception from authorities. Croatia has said migrants are welcome to transit through the country on their way to their next stop in Europe. One serious obstacle refugees have to look out for though — landmines. Tens of thousands of them are buried in the country, an ugly relic from the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.
ELTON JOHN
Punked: So, Elton John didn’t talk to Vladimir Putin after all. A Russian celebrity prankster known as Vovan said he and a sidekick made a prank call to John, posing as Putin and his press secretary and having a conversation with the British singer about gay rights. Excerpts from the alleged prank call were broadcast yesterday on state TV in Russia, and the fake Putin was interviewed by a late-night TV host. Vovan wouldn’t reveal how he got John’s phone number, though. He called that a “professional secret.”
