10 things you need to know today: November 23, 2015

Belgian soldiers patrol near the old Brussels&#039; stock exchange.

(Image credit: AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaer)

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1. Belgium arrests 16 in anti-terror sweep
2. Liberia monitors new Ebola cases
3. Pfizer and Allergan strike $150 billion merger deal
4. British leader to ask Parliament to approve anti-ISIS airstrikes in Syria
5. Trump defends supporters' rough treatment of Black Lives Matter protester
6. Conservative elected president in Argentina
7. 100 killed in landslide at Myanmar jade mine
8. 16 injured in New Orleans playground shooting
9. One of last white rhinos dies in San Diego Zoo
10. Final Hunger Games film leads box office but sets franchise low

published 23 November 2015

1. Belgium arrests 16 in anti-terror sweep

Belgian police arrested 16 people on Sunday in terror raids aiming to prevent imminent attacks by Islamist extremist terrorists. Salah Abdeslam, the last known surviving suspect in the deadly Nov. 13 Paris attacks, was not among those detained. Some of the raids took place in the Molenbeek neighborhood where some of the suspected Paris attackers lived. "What we fear is an attack similar to the one in Paris," Prime Minister Charles Michel said. Brussels' metro, universities, and schools would be closed Monday, Michel said.

Liberia officials on Sunday confirmed three new cases of Ebola, and said they were monitoring 153 people who may have had contact with the patients. The West African nation was declared Ebola-free in May, and then again in September. No neighboring countries currently have any known cases of the deadly virus, so World Health Organization investigators are working to determine how the new cases came about in a suburb of Monrovia, Liberia's capital. More than 4,800 people in Liberia, the country hardest hit, have died of Ebola in the latest global outbreak.

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Pfizer has reached a $150 billion merger deal with fellow drug maker Allergan. The boards of both companies reportedly approved the terms on Sunday. A formal announcement could come Monday. A Pfizer-Allergan merger, if approved by regulators, would create the world's largest drug company. It would also be the largest so-called corporate inversion ever. These transactions allow a U.S. company to move its corporate citizenship abroad to lower its tax bill. Allergan's headquarters are in Dublin.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President François Hollande agreed Monday in Paris to increase cooperation on counterterrorism. Cameron said he "firmly" supports Hollande's decision to strike Islamic State targets in Syria, and that "Britain should do so, too." He said he would ask Parliament this week to approve British airstrikes in Syria. It already has authorized bombing ISIS targets in Iraq, but in 2013 voted down airstrikes in Syria. Cameron also offered Hollande use of a British airbase in Malta for anti-ISIS operations.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Sunday shrugged off the apparent punching and kicking of a Black Lives Matter protester who disrupted a campaign rally, saying the man was "so obnoxious and so loud" that "maybe he should have been roughed up." The activist, Mercutio Southall Jr., shouted, "Black lives matter" during a Trump appearance in Alabama. Trump said, "Get him the hell out of here, will you, please?" Some of his supporters appeared to hit Southall after he fell to the ground in a scuffle.

Opposition politician Mauricio Macri was elected president of Argentina on Sunday. Macri, a wealthy Buenos Aires mayor, was propelled to victory by anger over government scandals and a weak economy. Buenos Aires Gov. Daniel Scioli, the hand-picked successor of outgoing President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, conceded Sunday evening. The pro-business Macri declared his election "the changing of an era" after more than a decade of the populist-left rule of Christina Fernandez de Kirchner and her late husband Nestor Kirchner before her.

At least 100 people died when a landslide at a Myanmar jade mine buried about 70 miners' shacks with mud and stones, the Democratic Voice of Burma website reported on Sunday. The landslide hit in the town of Hpakant in the country's northeast. Authorities said a huge pile of rubble discarded by mining companies gave way as locals combed through it hoping to find pieces of overlooked jade, sending debris crashing over the shacks.

Sixteen people were wounded in New Orleans on Sunday night in a shooting at a city park. About 500 people were gathered at a playground in Bunny Friend Park in the Upper Ninth Ward for the impromptu shooting of a music video when an apparent gun battle broke out. "At the end of the day it's really hard to police against a bunch of guys who decide to pull out guns and settle disputes with 300 people between them," Mayor Mitch Landrieu said. The victims all were hospitalized in stable condition.

One of four northern white rhinos known to remain worldwide died Sunday at San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The animal — a 41-year-old female named Nola — was euthanized after her health began failing. She had arthritis and was being treated for a bacterial infection blamed on an abscess in her hip. Nola had been at the park since 1989. The last three northern white rhinos are elderly. They all are living in a protected preserve in Kenya.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2 handily led the box office in its opening weekend, bringing in $101 million domestically and $247 million worldwide. The figures were less than expected, however. Mockingjay — Part 2 is the last of the Hunger Games films, and its opening-weekend haul set a franchise low for the massively successful Hunger Games films. Mockingjay — Part 1 opened on the same weekend last year and made $121.9 million. Catching Fire debuted at $158 million.

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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.