10 things you need to know today: September 19, 2016

FBI agents and law enforcement examine bomb debris in New York

(Image credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

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1. Suspects sought in connection with New York bombing
2. ISIS claims Minnesota attacker was its 'soldier'
3. Device explodes in New Jersey as bomb robot tries to disarm it
4. Kasich says Trump should apologize to Obama for past birther claims
5. U.N. General Assembly gets started under heightened New York security
6. Pro-Putin party leads Russian parliamentary vote
7. Germany's Merkel stung over immigration in second regional election
8. Non-Aligned Movement calls for more influence for developing nations
9. The Sound of Music's Charmian Carr dies at 73
10. Game of Thrones, The People v. O.J. Simpson, and Veep win big at Emmys

published 19 September 2016

1. Suspects sought in connection with New York bombing

Authorities detained and questioned five people in Brooklyn, New York, late Sunday as investigators searched for clues about who was behind the Saturday bombing that injured 29 people in Manhattan. Then on Monday morning, authorities said 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami is sought in connection with the bombing. Authorities said they were investigating evidence that could link two pressure-cooker bombs filled with shrapnel — only one of which exploded — in New York to a pipe bomb that exploded the same day in Seaside Park, New Jersey. That device blew up in a garbage can near the route of the Marine Semper Fi 5K charity race, and injured no one.

An ISIS-linked news agency on Sunday claimed that the attacker in a stabbing spree at a Minnesota mall on Saturday was a "soldier" of the Islamist extremist group. The attacker, who was wearing a security guard uniform, stabbed eight people before he was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said investigators had no evidence that the alleged assailant was anything but a "lone attacker." "Right now," Anderson said, "we're trying to get to the bottom of his motivations."

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An improvised explosive device discovered in Elizabeth, New Jersey, exploded early Monday when a bomb-squad robot cut a wire in an attempt to deactivate it. The device was one of five pipe bombs that were in a backpack two men spotted in a trash can outside a neighborhood bar about 500 feet from a train trestle. "Whoever threw it into the can was probably trying to get rid of it. It's not in a highly congested area," said the city's mayor, Chris Bollwage. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit temporarily suspended service in the area.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Sunday that the party's nominee, Donald Trump, owes President Obama an apology for claiming for years that Obama was not born in the U.S. Trump last week tried to distance himself from birthers, saying that Obama was born in the U.S. Trump surrogates insisted that Hillary Clinton's campaign started the birther attacks in 2008 and Trump put the matter to rest by getting Obama to release his long-form Hawaii birth certificate. Critics pointed out that Trump continued to raise the issue for years after Obama released his birth certificate, and that Clinton's team rejected the issue after campaign workers raised it independently.

The United Nations 71st General Assembly gets underway in New York City on Monday under heightened security following Saturday's bombing in another part of Manhattan. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city was ramping up an already expanded police presence across the city, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered 1,000 state police and National Guardsmen to deploy in the city, too. President Obama will meet Monday with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to discuss the campaign against the Islamic State, and he will address the General Assembly on Tuesday.

The United Russia party aligned with President Vladimir Putin came out on top in Russia's parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to early results released by the country's Central Election Commission. With a minority of votes still to be counted, the pro-Kremlin United Russia had a little more than 50 percent of the vote for 450 seats in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament. The Communist Party won 14 percent, and the Liberal Democratic Party had 13.9 percent. Critics said low turnout of about 39 percent also indicated that support for United Russia was eroding after a series of corruption scandals and economic troubles.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats fell to a post-reunification low in a Berlin state vote on Sunday, their second electoral setback in two weeks. The party polled at 18 percent, down from 23.3 percent in the last election in 2011, before Merkel's decision to keep the country's borders open in the face of a massive wave of immigrants and refugees mostly from the Middle East and Africa, which has triggered an angry backlash from voters. The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany polled at 11.5 percent, a significant gain.

Non-Aligned Movement member states on Sunday wrapped up their 17th summit with a call for the United Nations to give developing countries greater influence in the world body. "This movement has the force, the leadership, and the votes to decisively advance this transformation," said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose oil-rich but economically troubled South American nation hosted the 120-nation group's meeting. Maduro said the meeting would be "remembered for centuries," but only a handful of the Cold War-era bloc bothered to attend.

Charmian Carr, the actress who played Liesl von Trapp in The Sound of Music, died in Los Angeles of complications from a rare form of dementia. She was 73. In the 1965 classic, Carr was the eldest of the von Trapp children, famous for singing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen." When Carr was cast in the role, she had never taken any singing or acting lessons, and her only other major role was in the Stephen Sondheim television musical Evening Primrose. Carr appeared at Sound of Music fan events, and wrote two books — Forever Liesl and Letters to Liesl. After leaving acting, she ran an interior design firm in Los Angeles, with clients including Michael Jackson and Sound of Music screenwriter Ernest Lehman.

Game of Thrones dominated the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, taking 11 awards and becoming the most awarded series in Emmy history with 38 Emmys over its six seasons. The show won for Outstanding Drama Series for the second consecutive year, and also won for Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series. The People v. O.J. Simpson also was one of the evening's big winners with five Emmys, including Outstanding Limited Series. Veep also won big, with Julia-Louis Dreyfus taking home her record fifth straight Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy. "I think that Veep has torn down the wall between comedy and politics," she said. "Our show started out as a political satire but it now feels more like a sobering documentary." She then vowed to "rebuild that wall and make Mexico pay for it."

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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.