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Nobel Peace Prize
The winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize have a stark warning for the world’s nuclear powers: the planet’s destruction is “only one impulsive tantrum away.” Members of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), while accepting the prize during a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, urged all countries that have nukes to get rid of them. Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing and an ICAN member, said the world can’t “tolerate this insanity any longer.”
ICAN was awarded the Peace Prize for its work as the driving force behind the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted by 122 nations. Not among them are the nine countries known to have nuclear weapons: the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
Alabama Senate race
President Trump embraced controversial Senate candidate Roy Moore even tighter over the weekend. The President recorded a robocall for Moore, saying his conservative agenda will be “stopped cold” if Democratic candidate Doug Jones wins tomorrow’s special election. (The Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate.) The robocall comes after the President essentially held a rally for Moore, across the state line in Pensacola, Florida. The establishment wing of the GOP still has big time reservations about Moore after all the sexual misconduct allegations. Alabama’s other senator, Republican Richard Shelby, says he couldn’t vote for Moore. Jones will put out a robocall featuring Shelby’s criticisms today.
California wildfires
The wildfires tearing through Southern California are now burning an area bigger than New York City and Boston combined. The biggest of the six blazes — the 230,000-acre Thomas Fire — is the fifth-largest blaze in state history. And the weather is not helping out firefighters at all. There’s no rain in the forecast for 10 days, winds are still gusty and vegetation is still dry. Gov. Jerry Brown, who toured damage over the weekend, warned Californians wildfires are “the new normal.”
Jerusalem
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel a “terrorist” and “child-murderer state” in an address yesterday as he criticized President Donald Trump over his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response? “I’m not used to receiving lectures about morality from a leader who bombs Kurdish villagers in his native Turkey, who jails journalists, who helps Iran go around international sanctions, and who helps terrorists.”
In Beirut, hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police near the US Embassy to protest Trump’s decision. And more than 300 people were injured Friday in protests across the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley defended the decision, calling it “the will of the American people.” (Here’s why recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is so controversial.)
Iraq and ISIS
Iraq’s military says it’s finally kicked ISIS out of the country. The country’s Prime Minister says all areas have been “fully liberated” and Iraq has retaken control of its border with Syria. In 2014, ISIS captured huge swaths of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate there. The campaign to push out the terrorist group took three years and involved 25,000 coalition airstrikes.
