Sanders says he has a ‘path toward victory’ against Clinton
Sanders says he has a ‘path toward victory’ against Clinton
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said Thursday he still maintains a “path toward victory” in his Democratic presidential bid against Hillary Clinton, rejecting suggestions that she has all but sewn up the party’s nomination.
“I don’t believe they have an insurmountable lead,” Sanders said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Arizona, where he was campaigning. “Secretary Clinton has done phenomenally well in the Deep South and in Florida. That’s where she has gotten the lion’s share of votes. And I congratulate her for that. But we’re out of the Deep South now.”
Clinton’s campaign pointed to a recent memo by campaign manager Robby Mook, who suggested she has an “insurmountable lead” in the delegate count. The campaign noted its pledged delegate lead of more than 300 is nearly twice as large as any then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama held over Clinton in the 2008 primary.
“And note Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada and Iowa are generally not considered Deep South,” said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, referring to states won by the ex-secretary of state.
Sanders said in the interview he would not seek a recount of results in Tuesday’s primary in Missouri, saying it was “unlikely the results will impact at all the number of delegates the candidate gets and I would prefer to save the taxpayers of Missouri some money.”
EU agrees stance on Turkey migrant deal
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders have agreed upon a common stance on a plan to send tens of thousands of migrants back to Turkey something they will propose to Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu later on Friday.
At late night talks in Brussels on Thursday, leaders backed a mandate for negotiations with Turkey that they said would not result in mass deportations and some differences were bridged over sweeteners to give Turkey in exchange for its help.
“The 28 have agreed on a proposal,” French President Francois Hollande said. “It was late in the evening, but it has been done.”
But Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that reaching an agreement had not been easy.
“There too, it is a complicated process,” he said. “I think we can get a deal out of this, we have to get a deal out of this. But the race is not really finished yet.”
Tomb radar: King Tut’s burial chamber shows hidden rooms
CAIRO (AP) — Radar scans of King Tutankhamun’s burial chamber have revealed two hidden rooms, a tantalizing discovery that could resolve a mystery as old as the pyramids: What was the fate of Egypt’s beautiful Queen Nefertiti?
At a packed Cairo news conference Thursday to announce the find in King Tut’s tomb in Luxor, Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty declined to comment on whether any royal treasure or more mummies might be inside the rooms.
But he said the unexplored chambers could hold some kind of organic or metal objects.
Most experts say that while the scans might reveal another tomb behind the false walls, it’s unlikely to be crammed with solid gold and a royal mummy like Nefertiti, whose 3,300-year-old bust on display in Berlin is one of the most famous symbols of ancient Egypt and classical beauty.
“Quite often, people have done these sorts of scans, and when actually investigated, things have turned out to be nothing like predicted,” said Aidan Dodson, an archaeologist at the University of Bristol in England. “If they are chambers, most likely they’d be filled with more funeral objects of Tutankhamun, possibly including some gilded statuettes of gods, or perhaps even the mummy of a young child who predeceased Tut.”
Seoul: North Korea fires ballistic missile into sea
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea defied U.N. resolutions by firing a medium-range ballistic missile into the sea on Friday, Seoul and Washington officials said, days after its leader Kim Jong Un ordered weapons tests linked to its pursuit of a long-range nuclear missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile fired from a site north of Pyongyang flew about 800 kilometers (500 miles) before crashing off the North’s east coast.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it wasn’t known what type of missile was fired, but a South Korean defense official, requesting anonymity citing department rules, said it is the first medium-range missile launched by the North since April 2014 when it fired two.
A senior U.S. defense official said the Pentagon can confirm the missile launch, saying it appears to be a Rodong missile fired from a road-mobile launcher. The official said the test violated multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from engaging in any ballistic and nuclear activities.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said later Friday its surveillance equipment detected the trajectory of a suspected second missile fired from a site where the North’s confirmed first launch occurred. A Joint Chiefs of Staff statement said the object later disappeared from South Korean radar at an altitude of 17 kilometers (10 miles) and that it was trying to find out if a missile had been fired or something else was captured by the radar.
SeaWorld to stop breeding orcas, making them perform tricks
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — After years of pressure, SeaWorld made a surprise announcement on Thursday: It no longer breeds killer whales in captivity and will soon stop making them leap from their pools or splash audiences on command.
Surrendering finally to a profound shift in how people feel about using animals for entertainment, the SeaWorld theme parks have joined a growing list of industries dropping live animal tricks. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is retiring all of its touring elephants in May. Once-popular animal shows in Las Vegas have virtually disappeared.
“Society’s attitude toward these very, very large, majestic animals under human care has shifted for a variety of reasons, whether it’s a film, legislation, people’s comments on the Internet,” said SeaWorld Entertainment CEO Joel Manby. “It wasn’t worth fighting that. We needed to move where society was moving.”
SeaWorld’s 29 killer whales will remain in captivity, but in “new, inspiring natural orca encounters,” according to the company. SeaWorld’s orcas range in age from 1 to 51 years old, so some could remain on display for decades.
Attendance at SeaWorld’s parks declined after the 2013 release of “Blackfish,” a highly critical documentary. Some top musical acts dropped out of SeaWorld-sponsored concerts at the urging of animal rights activists, who kept up a visible presence demonstrating outside the parks’ gates.