Monday, December 14, 2015
Saudi voters elect 20 women for posts
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia
Saudi voters elected 20 women for local government seats, according to results released to The Associated Press on Sunday, a day after women voted and ran in elections for the first time in the country’s history.
The women who won hail from vastly different parts of the country, ranging from Saudi Arabia’s largest city to a small village near Islam’s holiest site.
The 20 female candidates represent just 1 percent of the roughly 2,100 municipal council seats up for grabs, but even limited gains are seen as a step forward for women who previously had been completely shut out of elections. Women still are not allowed to drive and are governed by guardianship laws that give men final say over aspects of their lives such as marriage, travel and higher education.
Deadly truck crash
PORTLAND, Ore.
A semitrailer truck hauling fuel crashed into a parked railroad tanker Sunday, sparking a fire that sent up plumes of black smoke visible for miles.
The truck driver was killed, and authorities continued to investigate the cause of the crash, Portland police said
Dozens of firefighters rushed to the scene from around Portland and nearby Vancouver, Wash., as flames reached 70 feet tall.
The rail tankers, which contained liquid asphalt, did not leak.
2 mosques defaced
HAWTHORNE, Calif.
Two mosques in Hawthorne were vandalized Sunday with paint ,and a fake grenade was left in the driveway of one of the properties, police said, adding that the FBI is helping with the investigation.
The Hawthorne Police Department said it received a report early Sunday that a possible explosive device had been left outside the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Baitus-Salaam Mosque. Officers found a replica of a hand grenade and the word “Jesus” sprayed in white paint on the mosque’s metal gate. Later, the department received a second call reporting the phrase “Jesus is the way” had been painted on the Islamic Center of Hawthorne’s facade.
Police said both incidents are considered hate crimes.
Far right in France collapses in elections
PARIS
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front collapsed in French regional elections Sunday, failing to take a single region after dominating the first round of voting, pollsters projected. The conservatives surged against the governing Socialists, changing the political map of France.
The failure of the National Front to gain any of the six regions where it was leading didn’t stop the anti-immigration party from looking to the 2017 presidential election – Le Pen’s ultimate goal.
Le Pen had been riding high after extremist attacks and an unprecedented wave of migration into Europe, and the party came out on top in the voting in France’s 13 newly drawn regions in the first round a week ago. But projections by France’s major polling firms suggested the party lost in all of the regions Sunday.
Seattle mulls letting drivers unionize
SEATTLE
Seattle may soon become the first city to let drivers of ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft collectively bargain over pay and working conditions, a move opposed by the companies and one seen as a test case for the changing 21st-century workforce.
The city council is to vote today on whether to extend collective-bargaining rights for drivers of taxis, for-hire transportation companies and app-based ride-hailing services that are part of the growing on-demand economy.
Associated Press