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.
This Day in History
Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler commits suicide; End of the Vietnam War as Saigon falls; George Washington sworn in as America’s first president; The Louisiana Purchase; Country singer Willie Nelson born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
What is sauce for the goose may be sauce for the gander but is not necessarily sauce for the chicken, the duck, the turkey or the guinea hen.
Breakfast News
Kunduz hospital attack: MSF’s questions remain as US military seeks no charges
Médecins Sans Frontières reiterated its request for Barack Obama to permit an independent inquiry into a US attack on its hospital in northern Afghanistan on Friday after a US military investigation failed to yield criminal charges.
Meinie Nicolai, the president of the group also known as MSF or Doctors Without Borders, told the Guardian: “We still have questions on negligence and the list of errors that we’ve heard” outlined in a declassified report into the 3 October airstrike that killed 42 civilians in MSF’s Kunduz hospital, one of the most infamous episodes in the US’s longest-ever war. [..]
Nicolai said MSF still had to thoroughly review the military inquiry before characterizing it, but noted that it was performed by the same US military that “committed the attack”.
Aleppo airstrikes continue amid renewed violence in Syrian city
Airstrikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo and shelling of government-held areas of the Syrian city have resumed, after a brief dawn lull followed seven days of violence, a number of reports have said.
At least one child died and five people were injured in airstrikes on rebel-held areas on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The strikes come on the same day as Russian state media said a “regime of silence” agreement in Syria sponsored by Russia and the US would apply for 24 hours in Damascus and the surrounding area and 72 hours in Latakia.
NGOs demand end to Syria atrocities as Aleppo airstrikes continue
Airstrikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo and shelling of government-held areas of Syria’s largest city resumed after a brief lull on Friday as the US and Russia consulted to shore up a collapsing truce after a week of violence.
At least one child died and five people were injured in airstrikes on rebel areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, while dozens of Syrian and international NGOs appealed to Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin to halt “atrocities happening on your watch”.
Italian couple win same-sex adoption case
Two gay Italian women have won the right to adopt each other’s children in a legal first for the country. All previous verdicts in Italy in favour of lesbian women being legally recognised as the parents of their partner’s children are at the appeal stages.
In its judgment on Friday, Rome’s juvenile court said Marilena Grassadonia, president of the Rainbow Families association, could adopt her wife’s twin boys. In turn, her partner adopted Grassadonia’s son. All three were conceived by artificial insemination.
In March, a man won his request to adopt his partner’s child, but rights watchers believed the ruling may have slipped through the net due to an administrative error, with the office of the prosecutor in charge of the case failing to file an appeal in time.
Grassadonia was a vocal campaigner in Italy during the heated debate earlier this year over a contested civil unions bill.
Large Hadron Collider on paws after creature chews through wiring
The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator has been brought to its knees by a beech marten, a member of the weasel family, that chewed through wiring connected to a 66,000-volt transformer.
The Large Hadron Collider on the outskirts of Geneva was designed to recreate in miniature fireballs similar to the conditions that prevailed at the birth of the universe, but operations of the machine, which occupies a 17-mile tunnel beneath Switzerland, have been placed on hold pending repairs to the unit.
The collider, which discovered the Higgs boson in July 2012, is expected to be out of action for a week while the connections to the transformer are replaced. Any remains of the intruder are likely to be removed at the same time.
Breakfast Blogs
When We Forget Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics emptywheel aka Marcy Wheeler, emptywheel
Notorious “FOIA Terrorist” Jason Leopold “Saves” FBI Over $300,000
Friday night soother: Remembering Cecil digby aka Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo
David Brooks: I’ll save america by personally remaking Sullivan’s Travels
The Cable Industry Threatens To Sue If FCC Tries To Bring Competition To Cable Set Top Boxes Karl Bode, Techdirt