10 things you need to know today: November 17, 2015

Two women stand outside the site of one of Friday&#039;s attacks in Paris.

(Image credit: AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

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1. France bombs ISIS stronghold for second day
2. Russia confirms bomb caused deadly Egypt jet crash
3. Governors reject plan to accept Syrian refugees
4. Obama defends his Syria strategy
5. ISIS threatens U.S. attack
6. Minneapolis officials request federal investigation of police shooting
7. Guinea's last Ebola patient released from care
8. Cubs' Kris Bryant unanimous pick for NL rookie of the year
9. Oxford Dictionaries picks "emoji" as word of year
10. Charlie Sheen says he's HIV positive

published 17 November 2015

1. France bombs ISIS stronghold for second day

France launched a second day of airstrikes on the Islamic State's de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa on Tuesday. The bombings came as French police conducted 128 overnight anti-terrorism raids to find terrorists linked to Friday's attacks in Paris, which killed at least 129 people, and prevent further attacks. French President Francois Hollande said the attacks were planned in Syria and that the war-torn country had become "the biggest factory of terrorism the world has ever known."

Russia said Tuesday for the first time that a bomb brought down a Russian charter jet in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Oct. 31, confirming the suspicions of U.S. and British intelligence agencies. The crash killed all 224 passengers and crew members. "We can say definitely that this was a terrorist act," the head of Russia's Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, said in a nationally televised Kremlin meeting. The homemade explosive device detonated shortly after the plane took off from Sharm el Sheikh, a resort city.

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At least 24 governors — all but one of them Republicans — say they don't want to accept Syrian refugees in their states. They made the announcements after France said at least one of the men who committed the Paris terror attacks had entered Europe with a wave or Syrian refugees. The federal government ultimately decides if refugees can enter the U.S., and President Obama said the world should continue to take in Syrian migrants after rigorous security checks. "Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values," he said.

President Obama on Monday defended his strategy on fighting the Islamic State, saying it was working despite Friday's deadly ISIS-linked terror attacks in Paris. Obama said he would not shift now and intensify U.S. military involvement in Syria and Iraq. "We have the right strategy and we’re going to see it through," Obama said. "What I do not do is take actions either because it is going to work politically or it is going to somehow, in the abstract, make America look tough or make me look tough."

ISIS appeared to threaten a Paris-style attack on Washington, D.C., in a video released Monday. In the clip, a man identified as "Al Ghareed the Algerian" said the Islamist extremist group would "strike America at its center in Washington." The footage was released hours after U.S. planes bombed oil trucks in Syria. The authenticity of the video was not immediately verified, but it was posted on a website where ISIS commonly promotes its messages.

Minneapolis officials on Monday asked the federal government to investigate the shooting of a black assault suspect by a police officer. The case sparked angry protests over the last two days. Demonstrators say the officer shot the suspect, 24-year-old Jamar Clark, while he was handcuffed. Police Chief Janee Harteau said the department's own investigation preliminarily concluded that he was not cuffed. The shooting occurred when officers responded to a report that Clark was attacking his girlfriend.

Guinea's last known Ebola patient — a 19-day-old boy — has recovered and been released from a treatment center, health officials in the West African country said Monday. The baby was born to an infected mother, who died. Doctors will now monitor the child and anyone who had been in contact with him for 42 days. If no new patients are found to be infected, the country will be able to declare its two-year Ebola epidemic officially over. The outbreak has killed 11,000 in West Africa. Sierra Leone and Liberia already are Ebola-free.

Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant was picked to be the National League Rookie of the Year in a unanimous vote by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Bryant, 23, broke franchise rookie records with 26 home runs, 99 RBIs, 62 extra-base hits, and 273 total bases. The only player ever to have comparable batting numbers in his first year in big-league baseball was Hall of Famer Ted Williams with the Boston Red Sox in 1939.

Oxford Dictionaries has named the "face with tears of joy" emoji its Word of the Year. According to a press release, Oxford made the decision after partnering with SwiftKey, a mobile technology business, to determine the most frequently used emoji. "'Face with tears of joy' came out a clear winner," Oxford said. The pictorial beat out actual words like ad blocker, Brexit, dark web, lumbersexual, on fleek, and refugee for the title.

Actor Charlie Sheen revealed Tuesday that he is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Sheen, who has starred in films such as Red Dawn and the popular sitcom Two and a Half Men, said he was diagnosed four years ago. His career has been plagued with controversy, and his illness reportedly was known to some in Hollywood. "I am here to admit that I am in fact HIV positive," the 50-year-old actor said. "It's a hard three letters to absorb. It's a turning point in one's life."

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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.