Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
AP’s Today in History for February 14th
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre; Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill author Salman Rushdie; Slobodan Milosevic begins his defense against war crimes charges; Dolly the cloned sheep dies.
Breakfast Tune Valentine – for Zither Banjo by Alfred Cammeyer
Something to Think about, Breakfast News & Blogs Below
UN reports stark rise in number of Afghan civilian casualties in 2015
Sune Engel Rasmussen
More Afghan civilians were killed or injured in 2015 than any other year on record, the UN has said in a report.
11,002 casualties is the highest toll since the UN began documenting in 2009, and constitutes a 4% jump from the previous year, following a worrying pattern: as the international military presence in Afghanistan diminishes, more civilians are caught in the crossfire or directly targeted.
The Afghan government’s struggle to stem the insurgency has forced Barack Obama to backtrack on plans to withdraw all American troops before his presidency ends. As reported earlier by the Guardian, the US is planning to boost Afghan forces in Helmand with several hundred Americans in late February. …
France draws the line on accepting additional refugees
Reuters
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls rejected on Saturday the idea of a permanent quota system for distributing refugees across Europe, putting Paris at odds with Germany ahead of a summit to discuss the EU crisis over migration.
Speaking to reporters at a security conference in Munich, Valls said France would stick to its pledge to take on 30,000 of the 160,000 refugees European countries have agreed to divide among themselves, but would not accept additional numbers.
“We won’t take any more,” Valls said. He expressed admiration for Germany’s readiness to take on more refugees, but added: “France never said ‘come to France.'”
Merkel is expected to push European partners to accept so-called “contingents” of refugees at a meeting on Thursday in Brussels, shortly before European Union leaders come together for their summit. …
Colombia says 5,000 pregnant women infected with Zika
Reuters
More than 5,000 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the country’s national health institute said on Saturday, as the disease continues its rapid spread across the Americas.
Cases of the virus total 31,555, the institute said in an epidemiology bulletin, among them 5,013 pregnant women.
Zika, which has spread to more than 30 countries, has been linked to the birth defect microcephaly and to neurological disease Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Total reported Zika cases increased by 23 percent over last week’s figures, while the number of pregnant women with the virus was up 57.8 percent. …
Pope Francis speaks out against corruption in Mexico
Reuters
Pope Francis launched a broadside against endemic corruption on his first visit to Mexico as pontiff on Saturday, calling on President Enrique Peña Nieto and his government to combat it.
Corruption is deeply ingrained in Mexico, and Peña Nieto, his wife and finance minister have all been embroiled in conflict-of-interest scandals involving homes purchased from government contractors.
Drug-trafficking gangs have infiltrated police forces across the country, and more than 100,000 people have been killed in drug violence over the last decade. Some 26,000 are missing. …
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Racy night with handcuffs lands Arkansas man in handcuffs, again
Steve Barnes, Reuters
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) – An Arkansas couple’s evening of “kinky” entertainment ended with one pair of handcuffs used for fun being replaced by another used for real in an arrest, police said on Friday.
Dustin Taylor, 21, summoned police this week to his home in Fort Smith to remove a pair of handcuffs he told officers he and his wife had been using the previous night while “doing some ‘kinky’ things,” the official report stated.
The couple had lost the key, Taylor explained.
The responding patrolman removed the handcuffs and did a routine search of Taylor’s name in a police database.
When the computer reported an outstanding warrant for Taylor on criminal mischief, handcuffs went back on. But this time they belonged to the officer.
Sergeant Daniel Grubbs, spokesman for the Fort Smith police, expressed a measure of sympathy for Taylor.
“I sort of wish the guy had invested in an extra handcuff key,” Grubbs said.
Happy Valentine’s Day.