International News
Iran says it will not give black box from crashed airliner to Boeing
The Guardian
Iran’s aviation authority has said it will not hand over flight recorders from the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed moments after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 passengers and crew onboard, either to the aircraft’s manufacturer or US aviation authorities.
The statement was issued on Wednesday as the leaders of Ukraine and Canada, from which dozens of citizens died, vowed to identify the cause of the crash amid contradictory statements and swirling speculation.
Can Asia handle the highs of tension-fuelled oil-price swings?
Al Jazeera
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - An attack in the Middle East. Oil prices surge as investors fear supply disruptions. Once it becomes clear that those disruptions are not materialising, traders calm down and so do oil prices. Life on the global markets returns to business as usual.
It's a cycle that's been repeated several times over the last 12 months, to varying degrees. The most recent incident happened on Wednesday, when Iran fired rockets at two Iraqi military bases that host troops from the United States.
AP FACT CHECK: Trump minimizes IS risk, distorts Iran payout
AP News
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump wrongly dismissed the continuing threat of the Islamic State group and spread a false tale of the U.S. paying out billions of dollars to Iran as part of the multinational deal freezing its nuclear program in an address Wednesday that fell short on facts.
He also made an assertion that is as dubious as it was provocative: that the Iranian missiles fired by Tehran at two military bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were paid for by money “made available” to Iran by the Obama administration.
US News
“Probably the worst briefing I’ve seen”: Inside the disastrous congressional Iran meeting
Vox News
Democratic lawmakers with questions about the rationale behind the Trump administration’s decision to kill Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani didn’t get the answers they wanted at the time of his death.
The administration promised all of their concerns would be addressed during Senate and House briefings on secret Iranian intelligence. Those briefings concluded Wednesday afternoon — and most Democrats (and some Republicans) are pissed.
Police give ‘all clear’ to 3 buildings targeted by bomb threats, including Water Tower Place and Block 37
Chicago Tribune
Three downtown Chicago buildings targeted Wednesday afternoon by bomb threats have been swept and everything was “all clear,” Chicago police said.
Earlier, some people were being kept outside of Water Tower Place in the 800 block of North Michigan Avenue as police investigated one report of a bomb threat there.
Mexican asylum seekers fear deportation to Guatemala
Al Jazeera
Mexicans seeking refuge in the United States to escape violence and lawlessness in their homeland fear worse dangers if they are sent to Guatemala under a new Trump administration scheme to crack down on asylum seekers.
According to US rules made public on Monday, Mexicans requesting protection at the US-Mexican border can be flown to Guatemala to seek refuge there instead.
Environment News
Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits
Vox News
An emergency situation that turned out to be mostly a false alarm led a lot of schools in Los Angeles to install air filters, and something strange happened: Test scores went up. By a lot. And the gains were sustained in the subsequent year rather than fading away.
That’s what NYU’s Michael Gilraine finds in a new working paper titled “Air Filters, Pollution, and Student Achievement” that looks at the surprising consequences of the Aliso Canyon gas leak in 2015.
Editor's note: Sorry I have been absent for a while. I was out of town for a couple of weeks, but I was able to get my tablet going again. I will try to keep Wednesday's OND going consistently.