84 Dead in France Vehicle Attack
Friday, July 15, 2016
Vol. 5, No. 197
World: Eighty-four people are dead in the French city of Nice after a truck plowed through a crowd of spectators last night just after the Bastille Day fireworks. Another 18 were listed in critical condition in the hospital.
A reporter for Nice-Matin wrote online that the fireworks had just ended and “A fraction of a second later, an enormous white truck came along at a crazy speed, turning the wheel to mow down the maximum number of people.” He wrote that, “I saw bodies flying like bowling pins along its route. Heard noises, cries that I will never forget.”
An American man and his 11-year-old son were among those killed.
The driver, a 31-year-old French/Tunisian man, was killed by the police. Guns and explosives were found in the back of the truck. French President Francois Hollande immediately extended for three months the national state of emergency that’s been in place since the Paris attacks that killed 130 people.
Vice Squad: The Trump campaign has signaled to Republican bosses that their candidate will name Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Trump was expected to make an announcement today, but postponed because of the Nice attack.
Other candidates vetted by the campaign have been former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Gingrich claims he told Trump his choice comes down to “having two pirates on the ticket, or having a pirate and a relatively stable, more normal person.”
Pence has been a six-term congressman, a radio host, and governor. He’s a traditional tax-cutting Republican and a born-again evangelical Christian. He accepted Obamacare for his state, unlike many other Republican governors, and has been critical of Trump. Pence was in the national news last year after signing a Religious Freedom Act that set off national debate about whether the law created legal discrimination against homosexuals.
>On the Democratic side, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine has been out on the road performing what appears to be a campaign audition with Hillary Clinton.
Kaine wheeled out some attempts at “make my day” lines. An example: “Do you want a ‘you’re fired’ president or a ‘you’re hired’ president?”
Judge Not: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg apologized for her un-courtly comments about Donald Trump. “On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them,” she said on Thursday. “Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.”
Brexit Shuffle: British Prime Minister Theresa May has shuffled the government cabinet, appointing several pro-Brexit politicians to front-line positions. Among them is the un-diplomatic former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who has been appointed Foreign Secretary, Britain’s chief Diplomat. Johnson once compared Hillary Clinton to a “sadistic nurse,” and said President Obama had “an ancestral dislike of the British empire.”
Car and Driver: Consumer Reports has called for Tesla to disable the car company’s “Autopilot” feature. A Tesla Model S was involved in a fatal accident while on Autopilot. A statement from Consumer Reports says, we’re deeply concerned that “Consumers are being sold a pile of promises about unproven technology. ‘Autopilot’ can’t actually drive the car, yet it allows consumers to have their hands off the steering wheel for minutes at a time.”
Natural Selection: It was only a matter of time. Two distracted men playing “Pokémon Go” fell off a cliff in Encinitas, Calif. on Wednesday in a demonstration of how the real world beats virtual reality every time. One of the pair dropped 50 feet and the other, 80 feet, hitting the beach. Both survived.
Using a smartphone, players find virtual reality “pocket monsters” out there in the real life landscape. Hillary Clinton announced she wants to use the game to register voters and get them to the polls. She told a shrieking crowd, “I don’t know who created “Pokémon Go”, but I’m trying to figure out how we get them to have Pokémon go to the polls.” Just don’t put the polls next to a cliff.
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