Email: Clinton campaign tried to move back Illinois primary ADVERTISING Email: Clinton campaign tried to move back Illinois primary WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried to move the Illinois presidential primary to a later date, saying a contest held
Email: Clinton campaign tried to move back Illinois primary
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried to move the Illinois presidential primary to a later date, saying a contest held after the Super Tuesday primaries might stop momentum for a moderate Republican candidate and emphasizing that Clinton and her husband “won’t forget” a political favor, emails made public on Thursday show.
A November 2014 email hacked from the accounts of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was among nearly 2,000 new emails published by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. The email, from Clinton’s future campaign manager Robby Mook to Podesta, said Obama administration officials should use their connections in the president’s home state to try to push back the March 15 Illinois primary by at least a month.
“The overall goal is to move the IL primary out of mid-March, where they are currently a lifeline to a moderate Republican candidate after the mostly southern Super Tuesday,” Mook wrote. “IL was a key early win for (GOP presidential candidate Mitt) Romney” in 2012.
While the request would come from Obama, the president and former Illinois senator, “the key point is that this is not an Obama ask, but a Hillary ask,” Mook said.
“The Clintons won’t forget what their friends have done for them,” he added. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, famously gave special attention to allies considered “friends of Bill.”
Something is happening: Bob Dylan wins Nobel in literature
NEW YORK (AP) — Bob Dylan, Nobel laureate. In the book world’s equivalent of a Supreme Court ruling, the Nobel judges declared Thursday that Dylan is not just a rock star but a poet of the very highest order.
Dylan, 75, becomes the first musician in the 115-year history of the Nobel to win the prize in literature. He was honored for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
It is the ultimate ascension for the man who set off a lasting debate over whether lyrics, especially rock lyrics, can be regarded as art. Dylan, who gave the world “Like a Rolling Stone,” ”Blowin’ in the Wind” and dozens of other standards, now finds himself on a list that includes Samuel Beckett, Toni Morrison and T.S. Eliot, whom Dylan referred to in his epic song “Desolation Row.”
“Congratulations to one of my favorite poets, Bob Dylan, on a well-deserved Nobel,” tweeted President Barack Obama, who in 2012 presented the singer-songwriter with a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Dylan rarely gives interviews, and a representative said the star had no immediate comment. He is on tour and was scheduled to play in Las Vegas on Thursday night.
Many Hurricane Matthew victims don’t have flood insurance
POOLER, Ga. (AP) — Waist-deep floodwaters from Hurricane Matthew coursed down the street and seeped under Lori Galemore’s doors, swamping the carpets and furniture as she and her three sons retreated upstairs, where they stayed until firefighters arrived by boat.
Galemore and her neighbors in Pooler, a community about 35 miles inland from the evacuated Georgia coast, were deluged not by seawater driven ashore by the hurricane, but by rain and runoff that overwhelmed a drainage ditch at the end of their cul-de-sac.
“Everybody said, ‘You’re not in a flood plain. You don’t need flood insurance,’” Galemore recalled Wednesday as her husband and sons threw out soggy furniture, waterlogged books, towels and blankets and wet chunks of drywall. “And flood insurance is expensive. Who wants to pay that?”
Galemore’s story is all too common. Many Americans don’t have flood insurance, some because they don’t want to pay for it, some because they don’t see the need for it.
As of August, only 19 percent of homeowners in Florida had flood insurance, 2 percent in Georgia, 9 percent in South Carolina and 5 percent in North Carolina, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Even in high-risk flood zones, the rate in those states ranged from just 25 percent to 65 percent.
Thailand’s revered king dies after 70 years on throne
BANGKOK (AP) — In an age when most of the world’s blue bloods cut ribbons and meekly approved whatever their governments proposed, the 70-year reign of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej stood out in sharp relief, perhaps a throwback to a long-vanished past.
Enjoying an almost god-like status, Bhumibol wielded real political power and inspired mass popularity as the world’s longest-reigning monarch.
Despite being held in great reverence, the king waded through rice paddies and trudged up hillsides to improve life for Thailand’s have-nots. He could squat humbly with lowland farmers and opium-growing hill tribesmen to talk about crops, irrigation and even their marital problems.
Bhumibol guided his country through political upheaval and wrenching social and economic change, and yet, in his final years, more Thais questioned the need for a powerful monarchy in the 21st century. Some critics believed its dependence on the king hindered democratic development. In any case, it is almost certain his successor will not have the same influence.
Thus, when the Royal Palace announced that Bhumibol had died Thursday at the age of 88, there was an instant and immense outpouring of grief.
Florida IDs new Miami neighborhood as Zika zone
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Health officials announced Thursday a new Zika zone in Miami — a setback less than a month after declaring the nearby Wynwood neighborhood cleared of the virus following aggressive mosquito spraying.
Five people have been infected with Zika in a 1-square-mile area of the city just north of the Little Haiti neighborhood and about 3 miles north of Wynwood, according to a statement released Thursday by Gov. Rick Scott’s office.
It is the third Miami-area neighborhood identified where mosquitoes have transmitted the virus to people, after Wynwood and a touristy section of Miami Beach, which is still considered an active transmission zone. Wynwood was declared free of the virus after 45 days went by without any new infections.
These are the first such areas of transmission confirmed in the continental U.S., following major outbreaks in Latin America of the disease, which can cause major birth defects, including stunted heads.
A travel advisory for the area for pregnant women was expected, similar to current warnings for pregnant women to consider postponing non-essential travel to Miami Beach and the rest of Miami-Dade County, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
