ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

March 23, 2016 (San Diego's East County)-- East County Magazine's World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

General news

• There were five hour lines to vote in Arizona because the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act (The Nation)
• Obama arrives in Cuba; hopes visit will usher in change (CNN)
• At water-crisis hearing, what Flint residents hear is broken government (CS Monitor)
• U.S. wrestler Hulk Hogan wins $115 million in sex tape suit (Reuters)
• Study finds U.S. visa security weaknesses, system slow to modernize (Reuters)
• U.S. Eases Sanctions Against Cuba Ahead Of Obama's Landmark Visit (NPR)
• Bullet hole in LaVoy Finnicum’s truck traced to elite FBI team (Oregon Live)
• How US green cards ended up being sent to the wrong people (CS Monitor)
• The Lost Generation of Millennial Entrerpreneurs (Reason)
• Vacancies shift balance of power at the Fed (Marketplace.org)

Presidential campaign

• Brussels attacks show how presidential candidates differ on security(CS Monitor)
• Trump presidency on top 10 global risk list: EU (BBC News)
• Top experts confounded by advisers to Donald Trump (New York Times)
• Bernie Sanders campaign is still raising far more money than Hillary Clinton’s (Vox)
• GOP elites line up behind Ted Cruz (Politico)
• Older voters may be Hillary Clinton’s answer to Bernie Sanders’ youth appeal (New York Times)

WORLD

• AP: ISIS has trained 400 fighters for European bloodshed (CBS)
• Paris terror attack suspect captured in Brussels (CS Monitor)
• Syrian Kurds declare their own region, raising tensions   (Washingotn Post)
• Refugees in freezing limbo on Greek-Macedonian border (Reuters)
• Witnesses: Warplanes bomb Yemeni market, killing dozens (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Seventeen corpses found after Venezuela miners' massacre (Reuters)
• The homemade explosion used in the Paris attacks was a chemical nightmare (Tech Insider)
• Getting out of ISIS: American among the few to escape (CS Monitor)
• After worst smog in 11 years, Mexico City braces for more (San Diego Union-Tribune)    

For excerpts and links to full stories, click "read more" and scroll down.

U.S.

General news

There were five hour lines to vote in Arizona because the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act (The Nation)

Reducing the number of polling places in Phoenix had catastrophic consequences in the March 22 primary….Election officials said they reduced the number of polling sites to save money—an ill-conceived decision that severely inconvenienced hundreds of thousands of voters. Previously, Maricopa County would have needed to receive federal approval for reducing the number of polling sites, because Arizona was one of 16 states where jurisdictions with a long history of discrimination had to submit their voting changes under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. This type of change would very likely have been blocked since minorities make up 40 percent of Maricopa County’s population and reducing the number of polling places would have left minority voters worse off.

Obama arrives in Cuba; hopes visit will usher in change (CNN)

President Barack Obama touched down in Cuba on Sunday, definitively ending a half-century of estrangement in a dramatic personal demonstration of his core foreign policy principle of engaging America's enemies.

At water-crisis hearing, what Flint residents hear is broken government (CS Monitor)

US House members on Thursday brought in Michigan Governor Snyder and EPA chief McCarthy to testify. Sniping ensued, to the dismay of Flint residents who are seeking solutions.  

U.S. wrestler Hulk Hogan wins $115 million in sex tape suit (Reuters)

A Florida jury on Friday awarded Hulk Hogan $115 million with the possibility of more after finding the Gawker website violated his privacy by publishing a sex tape of the celebrity wrestler. After deliberating six hours, the jury awarded Hogan $60 million for emotional distress and $55 million for economic damages. "This is a victory for everyone who has had their privacy violated," Hogan's attorney, David Houston, said.

Study finds U.S. visa security weaknesses, system slow to modernize (Reuters)

 U.S. immigration authorities' lack of progress in automating their systems is compromising U.S. border security, making it more difficult to process people seeking to get into the country, a report said on Tuesday.

U.S. Eases Sanctions Against Cuba Ahead Of Obama's Landmark Visit (NPR)

The changes make it easier for U.S. citizens to travel to the island, and allow non-immigrant Cubans who are in the U.S legally to earn salaries.

 Bullet hole in LaVoy Finnicum’s truck traced to elite FBI team (Oregon Live)

… The fourth round, police concluded, was fired by an FBI agent who subsequently twice denied to investigators ever firing his gun. As the investigation proceeded, detectives determined he also fired a second time, but didn't hit anything at the scene. The discovery of that gunfire and conduct afterward by the agent and four other agents have triggered a criminal investigation that could result in the prosecution of all five. The agents all serve on the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team.  (warning, graphic video)

How US green cards ended up being sent to the wrong people (CS Monitor)

A system implemented by US Customs and Immigration Services in 2012 failed on several levels, a report has concluded.

The Lost Generation of Millennial Entrerpreneurs (Reason)

The number of startups headed by the youngs is one-third of what it was in 1989

Vacancies shift balance of power at the Fed (Marketplace.org)

There are now three vacancies on the Fed board of governors.

Presidential campaign

Brussels attacks show how presidential candidates differ on security(CS Monitor)

Statements made after the Brussels attacks by Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders, and others give insight into their vision for fighting terrorism.

Trump presidency on top 10 global risk list: EU (BBC News)

Donald Trump winning the US presidency is considered one of the top 10 risks facing the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Top experts confounded by advisers to Donald Trump (New York Times)

When Donald J. Trump finally began to reveal the names of his foreign policy advisers during a swing through Washington this week, the Republican foreign policy establishment looked at them and had a pretty universal reaction: Who?...Mr. Trump has promised to hire the world’s brightest minds to make up for his lack of political experience, but his new foreign policy team left some of the country’s leading experts in the field scratching their heads as they tried to identify his choices.

Bernie Sanders campaign is still raising far more money than Hillary Clinton’s (Vox)

Bernie Sanders' well-oiled fundraising machine is showing no signs of slowing down. For the second straight month, Sanders relied on small donors to outraise Hillary Clinton, raking in $14 million more in February, according to numbers released on Sunday by the Federal Election Commission.

GOP elites line up behind Ted Cruz (Politico)

Republican elders, desperate to stop Donald Trump, are increasingly convinced they would rather forfeit the White House than hand their party to the divisive Manhattan billionaire. That’s why the party’s establishment is suddenly rallying behind Ted Cruz, a man they’ve long despised and who has little chance, in the view of many GOP veterans, of defeating Hillary Clinton on Election Day.

Older voters may be Hillary Clinton’s answer to Bernie Sanders’ youth appeal (New York Times)

…While Mr. Sanders’s message of political revolution has made him the overwhelming choice of the Snapchat generation, Mrs. Clinton is doing just fine counting on voters who came of age with Polaroids.In her sweep of the states that voted last week, she captured voters 65 and older by large margins, ranging from 39 percentage points in Missouri to 54 in Ohio. In Virginia, Texas and other Southern states that voted earlier, she won more than 80 percent of these voters, often matching or beating the support Mr. Sanders received from voters 18 to 29.

WORLD

AP: ISIS has trained 400 fighters for European bloodshed (CBS)

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum carnage, The Associated Press has learned.

Paris terror attack suspect captured in Brussels (CS Monitor)

Friday's capture of Salah Abdeslam comes after Belgian authorities say they found his fingerprints in an apartment raided earlier this week in another Brussels neighborhood.

Syrian Kurds declare their own region, raising tensions   (Washingotn Post)

 Syrian Kurds unilaterally declared the creation of a federal region in northeastern Syria on Thursday, raising fears of an accelerating disintegration of Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines and complicating efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis.

Refugees in freezing limbo on Greek-Macedonian border (Reuters)

Baby Zaynab lay swaddled in a multicolored blanket as her mother gently tried to rock her to sleep. She didn't get much sleep the previous night, kept awake by the bitter cold which sweeps across the plateau straddling the Greek-Macedonian border and penetrates the flimsy tent which is the only shelter for the 11-day-old baby and her parents.

Witnesses: Warplanes bomb Yemeni market, killing dozens (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Saudi-led warplanes on Tuesday launched two airstrikes on a busy market in a northern Yemeni region controlled by Shiite Houthi rebels, killing and wounding dozens of people, witnesses said. or killed, but had no precise figures.

Seventeen corpses found after Venezuela miners' massacre (Reuters)

 Seventeen corpses have been recovered from a mass grave in the rising toll from a massacre of miners in Venezuela's southern jungle, authorities said on Tuesday.

The homemade explosion used in the Paris attacks was a chemical nightmare (Tech Insider)

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters on November 14 that seven of eight attackers set off shrapnel-packed bomb vests designed for causing the "maximum number of casualties while committing suicide." The key ingredient in the bombs, Molins said, was a compound called triacetone triperoxide, or TATP — a crystalline powder that is a nightmare to terrorists as well as authorities.

Getting out of ISIS: American among the few to escape (CS Monitor)

An American man has recounted how he joined ISIS and then escaped after becoming disillusioned. Stories like his are becoming more common. 

After worst smog in 11 years, Mexico City braces for more (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Choking smog returned to the skies of Mexico City this week at levels not seen in more than a decade, prompting fears of more eye-watering days to come as efforts to curb pollution run afoul of the courts and the realities of life.