| | May 01, 2012 | | SCANDAL What started as a night out in Brasilia for three U.S. Marines allegedly ended up with a stripper hospitalized and nearly became a diplomatic incident. The Daily Beast’s Mac Margolis reports on the other Latin American scandal involving U.S. civil servants. Allies President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday to sign a strategic-partnership agreement with President Hamid Karzai. He arrived at Bagram Air Base before taking a helicopter to the presidential palace to sign the agreement. The pact pledges 10 years of U.S. aid after the withdrawal of troops in 2014. White House aides said that Obama traveled to the country to reassure Afghans that America will stand by them even after the troops have left. Obama also plans to address the American people from Afghanistan on the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death. Pushed Out? Mitt Romney may have been cool with his foreign policy spokesman being openly gay, but many vocal conservatives were not, driving Richard Grenell to resign from the Romney campaign not long after getting hired. Grenell announced his departure in a statement saying, "While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama's foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyperpartisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign." The National Review and Daily Caller recently published pieces on the outrage over Grenell's appointment. ABORTION WARS A group of Oklahoma residents who have been trying to get a so-called Personhood bill on the ballot—a bill that would establish that life begins at conception—said they would take the case to the Supreme Court after a judge struck it down. The bill passed the state Senate in February, but the House of Representatives refused to bring it to a vote last week. The petition was challenged by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and local abortion-rights groups. DEMONSTRATIONS Workers across the globe carried out strikes and marches to demand better labor conditions on Tuesday, while Occupy Wall Street launched the Spring phase of its movement in New York. Protesters marched all over Manhattan, chanting "get a job" at bankers. Several were arrested on the Lower East Side, and others as the group moved on the Williamsburg Brudge. Meanwhile, thousands of workers in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan marched for pay hikes, saying that their pay has not been on par with global consumer prices. Greek workers, subject to harsh austerity cuts in the wake of a European Union bailout, also planned rallies for Tuesday. | |
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