Top News Stories –

Rowan Atkinson divorced in 65 seconds on grounds of his ‘unreasonable behaviour’ –
Actor Rowan Atkinson’s wife has been granted a divorce on the grounds of his “unreasonable behaviour” after he left her for a comedy actress half his age. The Mr Bean and Blackadder star was not present at the 65-second proceedings in central London. Estranged wife Sunetra was granted a decree nisi against the 60-year-old by a district judge at the Central Family Court. Atkinson married the make-up artist in 1990. He has been dating 32-year-old Louise Ford for 18 months. Listed as Atkinson S D v R S, the case was the fourth in a list of 26 before District Judge Stephen Alderson for decrees and orders to be made under the “quickie” procedure. The County Durham-born actor and his wife, who have two children, are reported to have split last year. [Daily Telegraph]
Rowan Atkinson

Jeb Bush says he would kill baby Hitler if he could time travel –
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush says he once got an email asking whether he would kill the baby Adolf Hitler if it were possible. “It said, ‘If you could go back in time and kill baby Hitler, would you? I need to know,'” Mr Bush told a Huffington Post reporter on his campaign bus in New Hampshire last week. Mr Bush’s answer, according to the video clip: “Hell, yeah, I would. Look, you gotta step up man.” [Daily Telegraph]
Jeb Bush

Pat Eddery: Former champion jockey dies aged 63 –
Eleven-time Flat racing champion jockey Pat Eddery has died at the age of 63. Eddery, who rode more than 4,600 winners and won 14 British classics in a 36-year career, is regarded as one of the greatest jockeys of all time. Among his most famous victories were the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe of 1986 on Dancing Brave. Ireland-born Eddery, who retired in 2003 and was awarded an OBE in 2005, had been suffering from ill health. Only Sir Gordon Richards has ridden more winners in Britain than Eddery. [BBC] See List of the Day

Modigliani’s Nu Couché sold for record £113 million –
Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couché has sold for $170.4 million (£113 million) at Christie’s, making it the second-highest auction price for any artwork. Nu Couché (Reclining Nude) was sold in New York on Monday night after a protracted bidding battle. It was bought by Liu Yiqian, a former taxi driver who has gained a reputation for breaking records in his pursuit of priceless artworks to display in his own museums in Shanghai. The highest price for any artwork was the $300 million paid for Paul Gauguin’s Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) in February 2015. [Daily Telegraph]
Modigliani -Nu couché

Video of the Day –

Skier Miraculously Survives 1,600 Foot Fall

Pro skiing veteran, Ian McIntosh, narrowly escapes with his life after what TGR Co Founder, Todd Jones, says “was the most terrifying crash I’ve ever seen.” While filming for Paradise Waits up in the Neacola range of AK, Mac dropped into a line he thought he had studied thoroughly enough, only to fall into an unseen five foot deep trench on one of his first turns. “From there, my slough took over and their was no way to stop,

List of the Day –

Pat Eddery information (from Wikipedia)

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Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Sinai insurgency
  • Egypt‘s Interior Ministry announces the death of a senior figure in the Islamic State’s “Sinai province.” Ashraf Ali Hassanein al Gharabli, killed in a Cairo shootout with police, was also linked to other extremist groups and terrorist activities. (The Long War Journal)(ARAnews)
• Syrian Civil War
  • Aleppo offensive (October–November 2015)
    • Syrian Army troops break an Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant siege of the Kweires airbase in the Aleppo Governorate. (Reuters via Times of Oman)
  • A mortar attack on the coastal city of Latakia kills at least 23 and injures 65. (UPI)

Business and economics

• Thousands of protesters take to the streets across the United States to demand a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights for fast food workers. The Fight for $15 organizers said thousands of low-wage workers walked off their jobs in some 270 cities, and vowed that demonstrators would descend on tonight’s Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Reuters) (Huffington Post)
• Technology news website Re/code reports Dell Incorporated’s $67 billion offer to buy data storage company EMC Corporation could be derailed by a tax bill of up to $9 billion if key aspects of the deal do not qualify for the sort of tax treatment the companies consider essential for the transaction. (Reuters) (Economic Times) (Re/code)

Disasters and accidents

• All nine people aboard a Hawker H25 business jet are killed after the plane crashes into an apartment complex in the American city of Akron, Ohio. (Fox News) (WOIO via WNEW)

Health and medicine

• Chinese state news agency Xinhua joins critics of Shenyang’s handling of serious pollution problems. “The city of Shenyang has failed to apply emergency measures that could have reduced smog, and didn’t provide advisories to residents to stay indoors,” Xinhua wrote. The BBC reported pollution readings in the northeastern Chinese city have been 50 times higher than levels considered safe by the World Health Organization (WHO). (UPI) (New York Times)

International relations

• British Prime Minister David Cameron sets out his four-point EU re-negotiation agenda, including a demand to end Britain’s obligations to EU’s “ever closer union“. (Guardian)
• Myanmar tops the 2015 Charities Aid Foundation’s World Giving Index which measures each country’s charitable behavior. Individuals indicate whether they have donated money, volunteered, or helped a stranger in the past month. The United States, which tied with Myanmar last year, is second, followed by New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Ireland, and Malaysia. (Market Watch) (The Guardian) (CAF 2015 Report)
• Syrian Civil War
  • Reuters reports Russia’s eight-point proposal, drafted prior to this week’s international talks on Syria, wants the Syrian government and the opposition to agree on launching a constitutional reform process of up to 18 months, followed by early presidential elections. (Reuters)
• Iran, P5+1 & European Union Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
  • Iran stops dismantling decommissioned centrifuges in two uranium enrichment plants, according to state media reports. This comes days after Iran’s conservative lawmakers complained to President Hassan Rouhani that the process was too rushed.(Reuters)

Law and crime

• New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sends cease and desist letters to DraftKings and FanDuel ordering them to stop operating in the state because they violate New York laws against illegal gambling. (NBC News) (New York Daily News)
• The United States FBI foils an alleged plot by white supremacists in Virginia who were planning a reign of terror — shooting or bombing religious institutions, robbing jewelers and armored cars, purchasing land, stockpiling weapons, and training for the “coming race war.” (Washington Post) (WTVR)
• Kenyan police arrest Daily Nation senior reporter John Ngirachu who wrote about corruption at the Interior Ministry. Reports alleging outrageous spending by civil servants has raised pressure on President Uhuru Kenyatta. (Reuters)
• The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia suspends district court judge Richard Leon’s ruling yesterday that found the U.S. National Security Agency’s phone data collection program is unconstitutional. Leon’s decision barred the agency from further collection of data on the plaintiffs in the case — California attorney J.J. Little and his law firm — but did not have sufficient authority to outlaw the practice against all Americans. The government plea for the injunction said it will take “at least several weeks” for the NSA to implement a technical change that would prevent collection of Little’s data and therefore the entire program would have to shut down early based on Leon’s order. (Politico) (UPI)
• The Obama administration will ask the Supreme Court to overturn yesterday’s ruling by the New Orleans, Louisiana, federal Court of Appeals that blocks the deferred deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children. (UPI)

Politics and elections

• Former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt (1974 to 1982) dies at the age of 96. (The Guardian)

Sport

• Lamine Diack, who is provisionally suspended as an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in connection with suspected involvement in the Russian doping scandal cited in yesterday’s World Anti-Doping Agency report, resigns as president of the Monaco-based International Athletics Foundation (IAF), according to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAFF). Diack stepped down as president of the IAAF in August. The 82-year-old native of Senegal is under investigation in France on suspicion of corruption and money-laundering. (Reuters) (BBC)

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