NPR News 2015-03-10 加文本

NPR News 2015-03-10

From NPR News in Washington, I’m Jeanine Herbst.

President Obama calls voter ID laws a barrier to voting, telling CBS Sunday Morning that the Justice Department needs the right tools to correct the problem.

“If a local jurisdiction is discriminating against a certain set of voters – black, Hispanic, white, Asian – that the Justice Department can get in there and fix it.”

Obama also says he has problems with the voter ID requirements, saying some places that can cost up to 150 dollars to get a photo a burden for those on fixed incomes.

Thousands of people came to Selma, Alabama today to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Pat Duggins of Alabama’s Public Radio reports the march is in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

The Rev. Danny Lee Tucker was there for Bloody Sunday in 1965, but it was the second crossing attempt two days later that he remembers Martin Luther King Jr. led that protest himself. March organizers told Tucker to be King’s bodyguard in case of snipers.

“You see somebody going to shoot him, say just, you throw your body open and you take the bullet, that’s where I say I’ll do it.”

The marchers pulled back from state troopers who were attacked on Bloody Sunday, what became known as Turnaround Tuesday. Tucker was one of the civil rights foot soldiers honored yesterday by President Obama. For NPR News, I’m Pat Duggins in Tuscaloosa.

Two of the world’s most ruthless extremist groups may be joining forces after the leaders of Nigeria’s Boko Haram purportedly pledged loyalty to the head of the self-declared Islamic State. NPR’s Ofeibea Quist-Arcton says the authenticity of the tweeted recording though cannot be verified.

ISIS and Boko Haram have indulged in chatter to one another over the past year also, especially, say, the self-proclaimed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi praised the Nigerian insurgents for kidnapping almost 300 boarding schoolgirls in April last year, saying this was justification for the abduction of Yazidi women and girls by ISIS militants. Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau says the girls have been married off to his fighters and have converted to Islam. Shekau’s apparent pledge of allegiance is being seen as a shot in the arm for a flagging ISIS and a propaganda boost for the extremist Nigerian group, which is facing intensifying attacks from a regional force, vowing to defeat Boko Haram. Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Lagos.

Iraqi officials are investigating media reports of yet another ancient city being decimated by ISIS. The country’s minister of Tourism and Antiquities says they are hearing reports that areas in and around the northern city of Khorsabad are being demolished today by ISIS. That city dates back to 721 BC.

In Madison, Wisconsin, community members met with police over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer Friday. Police say the officer fired at Tony Robinson after he assaulted them. This is NPR.

Two men have formally been charged in the shooting death of a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. One allegedly confessed to the killings. Three others are in custody. Officials say the two charged are from the Caucasus area. Boris Nemtsov was shot and killed while walking near the Kremlin February 27th.

Today marks exactly one year since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 during a fly from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. As Stuart Cohen from Sydney, the Australian-led search for that plane continues in the Southern Indian Ocean.

Four ships continue the deep-water sonar search for the missing Malaysian airliner off the west coast of Australia. The Search Coordination Center says more than 10,000 square miles of the area where the plane is believed to have gone down have been checked with nothing more than a few sunken shipping containers spotted. Paul Kennedy is the project director.

“Some people call it mowing the grass because it literally is like mowing the grass when we’re out there. And we run up and down the search area, systematically searching every square meter. If it’s in the area we’re searching, we will find it.”

The leaders of both Malaysia and Australia have said their countries remain committed to finding the missing plane. Coordinators expect the sonar scan of the more than 25,000-square-mile search zone to be completed by May. For NPR News, I’m Stuart Cohen in Sydney.

At the box office this weekend, the sci-fi movie Chappie took first place with 13.3 million dollars. That’s less than Sony hoped the film about a police droid who learns to think and feel would bring in. Will Smith’s movie Focus fell to second place with an estimated ten million dollars.

I’m Jeanine Herbst, NPR News in Washington.