10 things you need to know today: November 13, 2015

U.S. Army Capt. Florent Groberg listens to President Obama describe his heroism.

(Image credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Jump to category:

1. Drone strike targets "Jihadi John"
2. Suu Kyi's party wins ruling majority in Myanmar parliament
3. University of Missouri appoints black civil rights lawyer as interim president
4. Suspect linked to Beirut suicide bombings says ISIS sent him
5. Top Defense Department aide removed over alleged misconduct
6. Army captain awarded Medal of Honor for confronting suicide bomber
7. HUD proposes to ban smoking in public housing
8. Florida police officer who shot church drummer Corey Jones fired
9. Aging reputed gangster acquitted in Goodfellas 1978 Lufthansa heist
10. Cleveland Clinic prepares for first U.S. uterus transplants

published 13 November 2015

1. Drone strike targets "Jihadi John"

A U.S. drone strike on Thursday targeted Mohammed Emwazi, the masked Islamic State terrorist known as "Jihadi John" who appeared in videos of the beheadings of several Western hostages. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said Friday that a leading British member of Islamic State and three other foreign militants were killed in strikes near the northern Syrian town of Raqqa. A high-ranking U.S. military source said there was a "high degree of certainty" that the Briton killed was Emwazi.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy has won a majority in Myanmar's parliament, and has enough seats to choose the new president, the country's election commission announced Friday. The victory ends decades of military-backed rule, although the constitution ensures continued military influence by reserving a quarter of parliament's seats for the army. The constitution also forbids Suu Kyi from becoming president; her sons are British, and a person with foreign born children cannot hold the position.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

The University of Missouri's Board of Curators named law professor and civil rights attorney Mike Middleton interim president Thursday. Middleton, the university's second black president, replaces former president Tim Wolfe, who resigned Monday amid protests that he had not adequately addressed race-related issues on campus. Middleton had been serving as the university's deputy chancellor emeritus, and he previously served as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

A pair of suicide bombings killed more than 40 people in Beirut on Thursday. At least 200 others were wounded. A would-be bomber who survived reportedly told Lebanese authorities that he had been recruited by the Islamic State. He said he and three others entered Lebanon from Syria two days earlier. An unverified statement attributed to ISIS claimed responsibility for the blasts. The explosions, which occurred within five minutes of each other, struck around an open-air market.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday that he had removed a top military adviser, Senior Military Assistant Lieutenant Gen. Ron Lewis, over allegations of misconduct. Carter said the Pentagon's inspector general was investigating the case. "I expect the highest possible standards of conduct from the men and women in this department particularly from those serving in the most senior positions. There is no exception," Carter wrote in a statement.

President Obama on Thursday awarded Army Capt. Florent Groberg with the Medal of Honor for confronting a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. Groberg, 32, shoved one of two attacking suicide bombers away from his patrol on Aug. 8, 2012, and knocked him to the ground. The attack left four Americans dead, and several others, including Groberg, seriously injured. "Today, we honor Flo because his actions prevented an even greater catastrophe," President Obama said.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed on Thursday to ban smoking in all public housing nationwide. The policy would turn nearly a million households into smoke-free zones, which a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said could save $153 million in annual health care and building maintenance costs. "The argument about secondhand smoke is over," HUD Secretary Julián Castro said. "It's harmful." The public has 60 days to comment on the plan.

The city of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, on Thursday fired police officer Nouman Raja, who had been on paid administrative leave since fatally shooting a black church drummer, Corey Jones, along Interstate 95. Jones' car had broken down, and he was waiting for a tow truck. Raja said he stopped to check on the vehicle, thinking it abandoned, and was confronted by "an armed subject." Jones, 31, had a concealed weapon permit and was armed, but he did not fire. Raja shot him three times.

Alleged mobster Vincent Asaro was found not guilty Thursday in connection with the 1978 Lufthansa robbery depicted in Martin Scorsese's film Goodfellas. Prosecutors argued that James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke, portrayed by Robert De Niro in the film, had to clear the heist with Asaro because it was on his family's turf. The thieves took $5 million in cash and another $1 million worth of jewels from the cargo vault. The defense told jurors not to trust testimony by witnesses with 22 murders to their names.

Surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic expect to become the first in the U.S. to perform a uterus transplant. The operation will be part of a clinical trial in which 10 women — who were born without a uterus or had it removed due to damage — will undergo the experimental surgery so they can become pregnant and have babies. If successful, the trial could offer new hope for 50,000 women with uterine factor infertility. So far, Sweden is the only country where such transplants have been done successfully.

Explore More

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.