# data[].attributes.body
Brought more awareness about mental illness in South Korea.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Better known as Jonghyun, Kim's death was confirmed by his management company, SM Entertainment, which said: "We are sorry to share such heartbreaking and tragic news... SHINee's Jonghyun left us suddenly."

Gangnam police said his death wasn't being investigated as suspicious and Jonghyun's family had not requested an autopsy.

Police said Jonghyun's sister called them to the apartment about 6 p.m. Monday, reportedly after receiving troubling text messages from him.

"Please let me go. Tell me I did well," and, "Final farewell," the star said in the messages, according to South Korean media.

Jonghyun was rushed to a nearby university hospital but was declared dead later that evening, SM Entertainment said in the statement.

The singer had a huge fan base as the lead singer of K-pop band SHINee. The group, formed by SM Entertainment, shot to fame after the release of their debut EP, Replay, in 2008.

Jonghyun was one of the most talented and well-rounded artists in K-pop, said Paul Han, co-founder of allkpop, a site for K-pop gossip and news, which has 10 million monthly readers worldwide.

"He had a wonderful voice and was so versatile and composed beautiful music. He was an even better person and he will be forever missed. The world of K-pop has lost one of its brightest stars," he said.

Earlier this year, the group went on a world tour that took in the US and released their fifth album, titled Five. Jonghyun had performed as a solo artist as recently as this month.

"We've come to the US for fan meets before, but concerts make me a bit more nervous and excited. I hope our fans will be able to make great memories with us through the music and performances we show on stage," Jonghyun told CNN in May after performing in Dallas, Los Angeles and Canada.

Fans in the US also paid tribute to the star as news of his death spread Tuesday.

"He deserves to be remembered for what a great person he was, and what an inspiration he was to so many people," said US fan Kylie Grant, 20, who traveled to Dallas to watch SHINee in March.

"To Jonghyun I'd like to say, thank you for all the happiness you have given me and so many others. You worked hard, and you'll be remembered forever."

In Seoul, fans paid their respects at Asan Hospital Tuesday, ahead of a funeral which the family has requested to be held "as quietly as possible," according to SM Entertainment.

"He was full of emotions and a sensitive person. He must have had lots of hardships but hid them and didn't show them to others, that must have been the toughest part for him," said Jung Min-kyung, who joined grieving fans in Seoul.

Two weeks before his death, Jonghyun sent a 47-line text to his friend, Jang Hee-yeon, a fellow musician from the band Dear Cloud, who goes by the name Nine9, with the request to post it to social media "if he disappears from the world."

The message said: "I'm broken from inside. The blues that slowly ate at me has finally swallowed me whole. I couldn't overcome."

"I hated myself. Holding on to disappearing memories and screaming at it to wake up. There was no answer. If I can't breathe, it's better to stop."

Nine9's manager confirmed to CNN she'd received the text and had permission from his family to release it.

A post on SM Entertainment's social media page reads: "Jonghyun is the best artist who loved music more than anyone else, enjoyed the stage, and loved to communicate with fans through his music. We will always remember you."

K-pop machine

Korean pop music -- or K-pop -- is one of the most notable exports to come out of South Korea in the past decade.

Many of its stars -- known as idols -- train for years, honing their singing, dancing and acting skills, while also learning other Asian languages, before they are even allowed to debut their first song.

Mike Suh, head of strategy and global business at entertainment conglomerate CJ E&M, says idols go through a long training period "so that they immediately attract fans when they first appear."

K-pop emerged in South Korea in the early 1990s, and labels such as JYP, DSP and YG built the nation's pop industry from the ground up, creating a training scheme that churned out stars for music, soap operas and movies.

K-pop's success has also been dependent on a highly-polished image. Stars typically can't be seen dating, getting plastic surgery, or become embroiled in any kind of scandal, Tamar Herman, who covers K-pop for Billboard.com, told CNN earlier in 2017.

CNN's Jane Sit, Jake Kwon and Sol Han contributed to this report

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
jonghyun: fans mourn death of shinee k-pop star   - cnn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jonghyun: Fans mourn death of SHINee K-pop star

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Better known as Jonghyun, Kim's death was confirmed by his management company, SM Entertainment, which said: "We are sorry to share such heartbreaking and tragic news... SHINee's Jonghyun left us suddenly." Gangnam police said his death wasn't being investigated as suspicious and Jonghyun's family had not requested an autopsy.

# data[].attributes.body
What has made you think?
One thing that has made me think is the victims of the Parkland shooting. Since the shooting more people have been outspoken about gun control more than ever, and has even started a new movement called the March for our Lives. It is sad to see how hard it is to make any sort of change towards guns and that it is mainly teenagers trying .
The death of K-pop idol Kim Jonghyun from Shinee has made me think more about mental illness. It shows how important it is to talk about mental illness. This has brought up the topic of mental health and how we should be able to more open about it and how we shouldn't feel embarrassed for asking for help.

What has affected young people?  Older people?
Young people seem to be more affect by the growing gun violence and seeing some sort of mass violence almost daily.
The possible removal of DACA will affect the young immigrants that were brought here by their parents.

What are the implications for the future?

Some future implications may include us becoming more divided than ever. The younger generation will eventually be able to vote which will then lead to more change on subjects such as gun control.

# data[].attributes.body
What has made you think?
One of the biggest things this year that has made me think is the power that victims have found and have had to gain because no one seems to be willing to do anything about their situations. Like in the aftermath of the Parkland Shooting, the victims are now the leading students of social protest and reform. This is obviously an opinion, as some think that children should not be the ones making reform.

What has affected young people?
I assume that gun violence and general unease in the nation have greatly affected the younger generation. We grew up in the aftermath of 9/11 and from there it seems to only be filled with terrorism and division.

What has affected older people?
I assume that political unrest and division has affected older people. They are seeing a split from their generation to the new generation, and it doesn't appear to be a smooth transition.

What are the implications for the future?
I believe, from what we've seen, that a divide will grow wider and wider until the new generation eventually has the power to vote and eventually take over the same positions that the older generation had, but with different ideals. I am not sure exactly how this will impact the future, although I hope it is for the better.

# data[].attributes.body
-Historic Value of Confederate monuments
-Gun Legislation
-Social Protests

# data[].attributes.body
The numerous mass shootings, especially the Parkland shooting, are moving policies towards stricter gun control. This will effect the younger generations in making them, hopefully, safer from gun violence, and the older generation in that it forces them to change their long standing traditions.

Political upheaval in the United States following Trump's inauguration, various investigations into his election staff, and multiple firings from office could bring new strength to the republican party or could further divide an already diverse nation.

Climate change and more extreme weather, such as the fires in California and Hurricane Harvey, have devastated portions of the US, giving more traction for environmentalists to push for awareness and legislation.

The #metoo movement has revealed sexual misconduct throughout Hollywood and else where. It inspires women to speak out about their experiences and is a step towards equality in the workplace. The Women's March on Washington was also a step towards equality

Protests between Black Lives Matter and Neo-Nazis broke into violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Confederate monuments have been covered. This is a cultural shift from the acceptance of the past and almost idealism of it to coming to face some of its more ugly realities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Using the Hubble Space Telescope and other sophisticated tools of observation and analysis, however, astronomers have identified hundreds of objects that are too massive and dark to be anything but black holes, including a supermassive one at the center of the Milky Way. According to current theory, the universe should contain billions more.

As part of his Ph.D. thesis in 1966, Dr. Hawking showed that when you ran the film of the expanding universe backward, you would find that such a singularity had to have existed sometime in cosmic history; space and time, that is, must have had a beginning. He, Dr. Penrose and a rotating cast of colleagues went on to publish a series of theorems about the behavior of black holes and the dire fate of anything caught in them.

A Calculation in His Head

Dr. Hawking's signature breakthrough resulted from a feud with the Israeli theoretical physicist Jacob Bekenstein, then a Princeton graduate student, about whether black holes could be said to have entropy, a thermodynamic measure of disorder. Dr. Bekenstein said they could, pointing out a close analogy between the laws that Dr. Hawking and his colleagues had derived for black holes and the laws of thermodynamics.

Dr. Hawking said no. To have entropy, a black hole would have to have a temperature. But warm objects, from a forehead to a star, radiate a mixture of electromagnetic radiation, depending on their exact temperatures. Nothing could escape a black hole, and so its temperature had to be zero. "I was very down on Bekenstein," Dr. Hawking recalled.

To settle the question, Dr. Hawking decided to investigate the properties of atom-size black holes. This, however, required adding quantum mechanics, the paradoxical rules of the atomic and subatomic world, to gravity, a feat that had never been accomplished. Friends turned the pages of quantum theory textbooks as Dr. Hawking sat motionless staring at them for months. They wondered if he was finally in over his head.

When he eventually succeeded in doing the calculation in his head, it indicated to his surprise that particles and radiation were spewing out of black holes. Dr. Hawking became convinced that his calculation was correct when he realized that the outgoing radiation would have a thermal spectrum characteristic of the heat radiated by any warm body, from a star to a fevered forehead. Dr. Bekenstein had been right.

Dr. Hawking even figured out a way to explain how particles might escape a black hole. According to quantum principles, the space near a black hole would be teeming with "virtual" particles that would flash into existence in matched particle-and-antiparticle pairs - like electrons and their evil twin opposites, positrons - out of energy borrowed from the hole's intense gravitational field.

They would then meet and annihilate each other in a flash of energy, repaying the debt for their brief existence. But if one of the pair fell into the black hole, the other one would be free to wander away and become real. It would appear to be coming from the black hole and taking energy away from it.

But those, he cautioned, were just words. The truth was in the math.

"The most important thing about Hawking radiation is that it shows that the black hole is not cut off from the rest of the universe," Dr. Hawking said.

It also meant that black holes had a temperature and had entropy. In thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of wasted heat. But it is also a measure of the amount of information - the number of bits - needed to describe what is in a black hole. Curiously, the number of bits is proportional to the black hole's surface area, not its volume, meaning that the amount of information you could stuff into a black hole is limited by its area, not, as one might naïvely think, its volume.

That result has become a litmus test for string theory and other pretenders to a theory of quantum gravity. It has also led to speculations that we live in a holographic universe, in which three-dimensional space is some kind of illusion.

Andrew Strominger, a Harvard string theorist, said of the holographic theory, "If it's really true, it's a deep and beautiful property of our universe - but not an obvious one."

To 'Know the Mind of God'

The discovery of black hole radiation also led to a 30-year controversy over the fate of things that had fallen into a black hole.

Dr. Hawking initially said that detailed information about whatever had fallen in would be lost forever because the particles coming out would be completely random, erasing whatever patterns had been present when they first fell in. Paraphrasing Einstein's complaint about the randomness inherent in quantum mechanics, Dr. Hawking said, "God not only plays dice with the universe, but sometimes throws them where they can't be seen."

Many particle physicists protested that this violated a tenet of quantum physics, which says that knowledge is always preserved and can be retrieved. Leonard Susskind, a Stanford physicist who carried on the argument for decades, said, "Stephen correctly understood that if this was true, it would lead to the downfall of much of 20th-century physics."

On another occasion, he characterized Dr. Hawking to his face as "one of the most obstinate people in the world; no, he is the most infuriating person in the universe." Dr. Hawking grinned.

Dr. Hawking admitted defeat in 2004. Whatever information goes into a black hole will come back out when it explodes. One consequence, he noted sadly, was that one could not use black holes to escape to another universe. "I'm sorry to disappoint science fiction fans," he said.

Despite his concession, however, the information paradox, as it is known, has become one of the hottest and deepest topics in theoretical physics. Physicists say they still do not know how information gets in or out of black holes.

Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley, and a former student of Dr. Hawking's, said the present debate had raised "by another few notches" his estimation of the "stupendous magnitude" of Dr. Hawking's original discovery.

In 1974, Dr. Hawking was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific organization; in 1979, he was appointed to the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge, a post once held by Isaac Newton. "They say it's Newton's chair, but obviously it's been changed," he liked to quip.

Dr. Hawking also made yearly visits to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which became like a second home. In 2008, he joined the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, as a visiting researcher.

Having conquered black holes, Dr. Hawking set his sights on the origin of the universe and on eliminating that pesky singularity at the beginning of time from models of cosmology. If the laws of physics could break down there, they could break down everywhere.

In a meeting at the Vatican in 1982, he suggested that in the final theory there should be no place or time when the laws broke down, even at the beginning. He called the notion the "no boundary" proposal.

With James Hartle of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Calif., Dr. Hawking envisioned the history of the universe as a sphere like the Earth. Cosmic time corresponds to latitude, starting with zero at the North Pole and progressing southward.

Although time started there, the North Pole was nothing special; the same laws applied there as everywhere else. Asking what happened before the Big Bang, Dr. Hawking said, was like asking what was a mile north of the North Pole - it was not any place, or any time.

By then, string theory, which claimed finally to explain both gravity and the other forces and particles of nature as tiny microscopically vibrating strings, like notes on a violin, was the leading candidate for a "theory of everything."

In "A Brief History of Time," Dr. Hawking concluded that "if we do discover a complete theory" of the universe, "it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists."

He added, "Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of why it is that we and the universe exist."

"If we find the answer to that," he continued, "it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God."

Until 1974, Dr. Hawking was still able to feed himself and to get in and out of bed. At Jane's insistence, he would drag himself, hand over hand, up the stairs to the bedroom in his Cambridge home every night, in an effort to preserve his remaining muscle tone. After 1980, care was supplemented by nurses.

Dr. Hawking retained some control over his speech up to 1985. But on a trip to Switzerland, he came down with pneumonia. The doctors asked Jane if she wanted his life support turned off, but she said no. To save his life, doctors inserted a breathing tube. He survived, but his voice was permanently silenced.

Speaking With the Eyes

It appeared for a time that he would be able to communicate only by pointing at individual letters on an alphabet board. But when a computer expert, Walter Woltosz, heard about Dr. Hawking's condition, he offered him a program he had written called Equalizer. By clicking a switch with his still-functioning fingers, Dr. Hawking was able to browse through menus that contained all the letters and more than 2,500 words.

Word by word - and when necessary, letter by letter - he could build up sentences on the computer screen and send them to a speech synthesizer that vocalized for him. The entire apparatus was fitted to his motorized wheelchair.

Even when too weak to move a finger, he communicated through the computer by way of an infrared beam, which he activated by twitching his right cheek or blinking his eye. The system was expanded to allow him to open and close the doors in his office and to use the telephone and internet without aid.

Although he averaged fewer than 15 words per minute, Dr. Hawking found he could speak through the computer better than he had before losing his voice. His only complaint, he confided, was that the speech synthesizer, manufactured in California, gave him a new vocal inflection.

"Please pardon my American accent," he used to say.

His decision to write "A Brief History of Time" was prompted, he said, by a desire to share his excitement about "the discoveries that have been made about the universe" with "the public that paid for the research." He wanted to make the ideas so accessible that the book would be sold in airports.

He also hoped to earn enough money to pay for his children's education. He did. The book's extraordinary success made him wealthy, a hero to disabled people everywhere and even more famous.

The news media followed his movements and activities over the years, from visiting the White House to meeting the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and reported his opinions on everything from national health care (socialized medicine in England had kept him alive) to communicating with extraterrestrials (maybe not a good idea, he said), as if he were a rolling Delphic Oracle.

Asked by New Scientist magazine what he thought about most, Dr. Hawking answered: "Women. They are a complete mystery."

In 1990, Dr. Hawking and his wife separated after 25 years of marriage; Jane Hawking wrote about their years together in two books, "Music to Move the Stars: A Life With Stephen Hawking" and "Traveling to Infinity: My Life With Stephen." The latter became the basis of the movie "The Theory of Everything."

In 1995, he married Elaine Mason, a nurse who had cared for him since his bout of pneumonia. She had been married to David Mason, the engineer who had attached Dr. Hawking's speech synthesizer to his wheelchair.

In 2004, British newspapers reported that the Cambridge police were investigating allegations that Elaine had abused Dr. Hawking, but no charges were filed, and Dr. Hawking denied the accusations. They later divorced.

His survivors include his children, Robert, Lucy and Tim, and three grandchildren.

'There Is No Heaven'

Among his many honors, Dr. Hawking was named a commander of the British Empire in 1982. In the summer of 2012, he had a star role in the opening of the Paralympics Games in London. The only thing lacking was the Nobel Prize, and his explanation for this was characteristically pithy: "The Nobel is given only for theoretical work that has been confirmed by observation. It is very, very difficult to observe the things I have worked on."

Dr. Hawking was a strong advocate of space exploration, saying it was essential to the long-term survival of the human race. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of," he told an audience in Hong Kong in 2007.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Stephen Hawking Dies at 76; His Mind Roamed the Cosmos

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Using the Hubble Space Telescope and other sophisticated tools of observation and analysis, however, astronomers have identified hundreds of objects that are too massive and dark to be anything but black holes, including a supermassive one at the center of the Milky Way. According to current theory, the universe should contain billions more.

# data[].attributes.body
26 slain in Sutherland Springs church

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
deadly church massacre claims 26 lives - cnn video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Deadly church massacre claims 26 lives - CNN Video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Devin Kelley, a former airman who was discharged from the military for bad conduct, opened fire on a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, leaving at least 26 people dead. CNN's Brian Todd reports.

# data[].attributes.body
Joint Unified Korean team, LGBT+ pride, Olympic Athletes from Russia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One hundred and sixty eight Russian athletes competed for the Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR) team under a neutral flag, provided they could prove there were clean.

CNN Sport has been in Pyeongchang, South Korea, covering the Games and below are our top 11 moments.

At PyeongChang 2018, a worldwide star was born. The reaction to Chloe Kim becoming the youngest snowboarder to win Olympic gold was on a level which only the likes of Usain Bolt experience.

The 17-year-old ran the gauntlet of TV interviews and negotiated the maze of reporters with equanimity. But hers is a life changed.

According to reports, her limited-edition "Gold Medal" Kellogg's Corn Flakes box sold out in seven hours, a record said the company.

Even before she won gold -- and became the first female to land consecutive 1080s in the halfpipe at the Olympics -- she could already count Nike, Toyota and Mondelez as her sponsors. More blue chip companies will surely follow.

Kenworthy kiss

It was a tender moment between two men in love, an openly gay Olympian kissing his boyfriend at the bottom of the hill during the ski slopestyle event.

Broadcast live to the world and then shared on social media, Gus Kenworthy's kiss with boyfriend Matthew Wilkas was hailed as a celebration of LGBTQ pride. It was another notable occasion at a Winter Olympics which has been full of symbolism.

Four years ago, Kenworthy had wanted to share a kiss with his then boyfriend at the Sochi Winter Olympics. But having yet to reveal he was gay, the slopestyle silver medalist had second thoughts. He was not ready for that to be his coming-out moment.

But in Pyeongchang, despite not winning a medal, he told CNN: "This was actually the Olympic experience I was hoping for. I'm leaving here more fulfilled without a medal than I did at the last games with one."

Ester Ledecka

The greatest athlete at the Pyeongchang 2018? That honor must surely be bestowed on Czech sensation Ester Ledecka, even if the 22-year-old herself does not agree.

Seven days after becoming the first snowboarder to win Olympic gold in alpine skiing, the surprise star of these Games followed up her success in the super-G with gold in snowboarding's parallel giant slalom.

It has been 90 years since anyone claimed gold in two different sports at the same Winter Games. She is the first woman, and only the third athlete, to achieve such dizzying success.

Asked whether she was the best athlete in Pyeonchang, Ledecka gave a firm "no."

"There are the greatest athletes in the world here," she told reporters. When it was pointed out to the Czech that she was the only one at the Games who had won gold medals in two different sports, she casually shrugged her shoulders and simply said: "Whatever."

But don't let the nonchalance fool you, she is a once-in-a-generation talent.

Marit Bjoergen

Norway's Marit Bjoergen might reasonably counter she was the standout performer at the Winter Games.

Bjoergen, who turns 38 in March, won the final gold medal of the 2018 PyeongChang Games in the women's cross-country 30-kilometer mass start on Sunday.

Earlier in the 2018 Games, Bjoergen became the most successful Winter Olympian of all time, when she finished third in the team sprint free.

Her bronze with Maiken Caspersen Falla put her on 14 Olympic medals, outstripping fellow Norwegian Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, who has 13 in biathlon.

Sunday's success brought her Olympic medal haul to eight golds and 15 in total. It also brought Norway's total haul at this Games to 39 medals -- eight more than Germany -- a record for a single Olympic Winter Games.

The 37-year-old skier is the second most successful woman at either the Summer or Winter Games. Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina has 18 medals.

Opening ceremony

The sight of athletes from North and South Korea walking in unison at the opening ceremony for the first time in 11 years was a moment that will live long in the memory.

The lead up to these Winter Olympics had been dominated by relations between two nations still technically at war. After a year of escalating hostility over Pyongyang's ballistic missile program, this Olympics gave the two countries reason to talk again.

No matter how affecting the message of peace on the host nation's first night, it would be fanciful to think that a sporting occasion can bring about a truce between a Korea divided since 1953, but it was still a heartwarming evening.

There were selfies between North and South Koeran athletes as they waited to walk into the heart of the stadium.

And when the Koreans emerged -- North Korea ice hockey player Chung Gum Hwang and South Korean bobsledder Won Yun-jong both held the flag of a unified Korean peninsula -- they were greeted to an ovation from 35,000 cheering spectators.

Unified Korean ice hockey team

Rarely does sport become secondary on one of the grandest sporting stages of all. But on the night the unified Korean ice hockey team made its Olympic debut, even in comprehensive defeat they sent a message to the world that winning is not everything.

It was not for sporting reasons that this group of 35 women were hastily put together.

Their first outing of the Games, which ended in an 8-0 defeat by Switzerland, captured the imagination. The result mattered little.

No-one expected this combined team to achieve anything on the ice but the political message resonated louder than any fan's roar.

Korean cheerleaders

Few at Pyeongchang 2018 could match the relentless enthusiasm of North Korea's cheering squad. Flanked by security wherever they went, the traveling troupe of 230 young women -- handpicked from university students, propaganda squad members and music school students, according to China Radio International (CRI) -- charmed fans and viewers.

They were as absorbing as any contest.

Dressed in matching uniforms, they were easy to spot, and to hear, and faithfully followed North Korean athletes throughout; chanting, singing, dancing and waving flags in perfect unison.

Photographers focused their lenses on the cheerleaders nearly as often as those performing on the snow and ice. South Koreans were enthralled, too.

It was a rare chance to see a northern neighbor.

Their presence also created some angst with those who believed that allowing North Korea to compete at the Games allowed the country to also spread propaganda.

USA women's ice hockey

What a match. The game that had it all. It came down to a sudden-death shootout for gold between four-time defending champions Canada and perennial bridesmaids the US.

In a knee-knocking final, the scores were level at 2-2 after five penalty shots each then came Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson.

The American scored and Maddie Rooney followed up with a save from Canada's Meghan Agosta. Cue jubilation as the US women celebrated winning ice hockey gold for the first time in 20 years.

"I just reacted to her, and then everything kind of went into a blur," Rooney, 20, told reporters afterwards.

Canada had won gold at the previous four Olympics, including victories over the USA in the 2002, 2010 and 2014 finals.

Victory was all the more significant as a year ago the US team threatened to boycott the world championships over better pay and work conditions. A last-minute settlement, including substantial pay rises, got them back on the ice.

Red Gerrard

The 17-year-old American overslept the morning of the slopestyle competition, lost his coat, and went into his third run on a blustery morning at the Phoenix Snow Park ranked 11th out of 12 finalists.

He had one last chance and he nailed it, producing a spectacular gold-medal winning run.

Team USA had its first gold of the Games and Gerard became the youngest American man to win an Olympic winter gold medal since 1928.

The teenager is also the second-youngest man to top the podium in any individual event after Finland's Toni Nieminen, who won ski jumping gold aged 16 in 1992.

"Just to land a run would have been plenty for me and to get on the podium, but to get first is crazy," he told reporters afterwards.

'Garlic Girls'

They may have lost to Sweden in the final, but South Korea's so-called curling "Garlic Girls" captured hearts in Pyeongchang.

The South Korean women's curling team -- given their moniker because of their garlic-producing hometown -- attracted worldwide attention during the Games, their surprise winning streak turning them into internet sensations.

Ranked eighth coming into the Games, the underdogs beat Canada and Sweden in the round-robin competitions and went on to defeat Japan in the semifinals, sparking flag-fluttering frenzy.

Four of the five members attended the same high school and the long-time friends all learned their trade on the first curling centre ever built in South Korea.

Two are sisters -- Kim Yeong-mi and Kim Kyeong-ae -- and their team-mates Kim Eun-jung, Kim Seon-yeong and alternate Kim Cho-hi all share the same surname.

They have endearing nicknames for each other, too, such as "Pancake," "Steak" and "Cookie.' Uiseong used to be better known for its garlic production. Not anymore.

Cross-country skiers

Mexico's German Madrazo had never skied until last year and while the 43-year-old may have finished last in the men's 15km cross country, the sight of him crossing the line, holding the Mexican flag aloft, encapsulated the Olympic spirit.

Waiting for him at the finishing line were his fellow late finishers -- including Tonga's Pita Taufatoufua who came home in 114th place -- and they greeted him with a hero's welcome, lifting him onto their shoulders as he waved to the crowd.

He had finished 116th but that mattered little as he drank in the moment with the men whom he had travelled the world with, spending nearly all his cash, to qualify for the Games.

"Pita and I spent two months, fighting and fighting every day," Madrazo told reporters after his event.

"One day we were completely out of money and we had one last chocolate bar. There was nothing left and we split that chocolate bar and said, 'Well brother, we live to fight another day."'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
pyeongchang 2018: the top 11 moments from the winter olympics - cnn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PyeongChang 2018: The top 11 moments from the Winter Olympics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One hundred and sixty eight Russian athletes competed for the Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR) team under a neutral flag, provided they could prove there were clean. CNN Sport has been in Pyeongchang, South Korea, covering the Games and below are our top 11 moments. At PyeongChang 2018, a worldwide star was born.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey.

"I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Mr. Trump said in a letter to Comey released Tuesday. "I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately."

"While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau," the president continued. "It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors."

The dismissal comes as the FBI is investigating any Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and any Russian ties to Trump associates. Comey had most recently come under fire for misstating how many sensitive emails Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton, forwarded to her husband, Anthony Weiner.

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe will become acting FBI director while the search for a new director begins, according to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Comey was meeting with agents and staff at the FBI complex in Los Angeles when he was fired. He was scheduled to speak tonight at a recruiting event for the FBI. Mr. Trump's longtime body man, Keith Schiller, dropped off the letters notifying Comey of his firing by hand this afternoon at the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., a White House official confirmed. Comey boarded a plane a little before 9 p.m. ET -- a little before 6 p.m. PT -- presumably destined for the East Coast.

McCabe was called to a meeting at 5:30 p.m. and appointed acting director 15 minutes before the White House announced Comey's firing at 5:45 p.m. U.S. officials told CBS News McCabe hastily arranged a video conference with the FBI's 56 field offices, held at about 8 p.m.

Why was James Comey fired?

The White House released several documents after Comey's firing, including the letter Mr. Trump informing Comey of his termination, the memo from Sessions recommending Comey's dismissal to the president, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's memo to Sessions on Comey.

"The Director of the FBI must be someone who follows faithfully the rules and principles of the Department of Justice and who sets the right example for our law enforcement officials and others in the Department," Sessions wrote to the president. "Therefore, I must recommend that you remove Director James B. Comey, Jr., and identify an experienced and qualified individual to lead the great men and women of the FBI.

It was the strongly worded memo written by Rosenstein to Sessions that outlined Comey's missteps and laid out the argument for his removal.

"The current FBI Director is an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice," Rosenstein wrote. "He deserves our appreciation for his public service. As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton's emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives."

Rosenstein continued to expand his case for Comey's removal, adding a succession of bad decisions on Comey's part in handling the Clinton email case so publicly.

"The director was wrong to usurp the attorney general's authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution," Rosenstein continued. "It is not the function of the director to make such an announcement. At most, the director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed Attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department."

Rosenstein also included opinions from multiple former attorneys general and deputy attorneys general baffled at Comey for discussing the Clinton email case without any indictments.

"The way the director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong," Rosenstein wrote. "As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the search for a new FBI director will begin immediately.

"The FBI is one of our nation's most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement," Spicer said in a statement.

This story will be updated as it develops.
CBS News' Jacqueline Alemany and Andy Triay contributed to this report.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
James Comey, FBI director, fired - Live updates

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey. "I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Mr. Trump said in a letter to Comey released Tuesday.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
United Airlines is facing a turbulent public reaction over its treatment of a passenger who was physically dragged from a flight.

A video of the incident showed a man identified as Kentucky physician David Dao, who was traveling on United Airlines flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville, forcibly removed when the flight was oversold Sunday night. Passengers were chosen at random to be bumped from the flight, including Dao and his wife. He was shown screaming as officers pull him from his seat.

Dao was seen being dragged down the aisle on his back by his hands, body limp, bleeding from the mouth, glasses askew and shirt pulled up above his navel.

It marks the second time in less than a month that United was criticized for its treatment of passengers. Adding to the public outrage is a letter from United CEO Oscar Munoz to its employees defending the airline's actions, writing "our agents were left with no choice" but to call security to remove the passenger.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Munoz issued his "deepest apologies" for the incident and said the company is reviewing its policies. He said he expects the results to be completed by April 30. "Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard," he wrote. "No one should ever be mistreated this way."

Munoz added the company will "take full responsibility" and is undertaking a "thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement."

Cutting up my United frequent flyer card, and will NEVER EVER fly them again. #boycottunited #united pic.twitter.com/JX2Ds916eU
- Steven Reichert (@StevenReichert1) April 11, 2017

Other passengers said the man identified himself as a doctor, and said he couldn't give up his seat because he had to see patients in the morning. Another passenger said the man's injury came from his face hitting the arm rest as he was dragged from the plane.

An attorney representing Dao issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying he is being treated for his injuries in a Chicago hospital.

"The family of Dr. Dao wants the world to know that they are very appreciative of the outpouring of prayers, concern and support they have received,"said Chicago attorney Stephen L. Golan of Golan Christie Taglia, who represents the Dao family. "Currently, they are focused only on Dr. Dao's medical care and treatment."

United CEO should resign immediately.

There is no excuse for what happened aboard that #unitedAIRLINES flight.
- Carlo Scagnelli 🌹 (@CarloScagnelli) April 11, 2017

Dao was one of four people picked by United to be involuntarily bumped from the flight. The reason? The airline needed to seat four of its own employees, according to The New York Times. When those employees got on the flight and took the newly unoccupied seats, other passengers told them they should be ashamed, the publication added.

United Airlines shares fell almost 4 percent amid the backlash. The incident reached more than 340 million Chinese users on the Weibo platform by Tuesday morning, and consumers in that country were calling for a boycott of the airline, according to BuzzFeed.

The treatment of the man trended on social media, with some U.S. consumers also vowing to boycott United.

Munoz said there are lessons the company can learn from this situation, though he impressed that he "emphatically" stands behind his employees.

"We sought volunteers and then followed our involuntary denial of boarding process (including offering up to $1,000 in compensation)," Munoz wrote. "When we approached one of these passengers to explain apologetically that he was being denied boarding, he raised his voice and refused to comply with crew member instructions."

The Chicago Department of Aviation said in a statement that one of the officers did not follow protocol and added that he had been placed on leave pending a review for actions not condoned by the department.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) said it was reviewing whether United complied with overbook rules that require airlines to set guidelines on how passengers are denied boarding if they do not volunteer to give up their seats.

"While it is legal for airlines to involuntarily bump passengers from an oversold flight when there are not enough volunteers, it is the airline's responsibility to determine its own fair boarding priorities," a DOT spokesperson said in a statement.

The incident, which was one of the top-trending topics on Twitter as users took to the website to express their anger toward the airline, also became the focus of dark humor. The hashtag #NewUnitedAirlinesMottos trended on Tuesday morning, including "board as a doctor, leave as a patient" and "We make offers you'd better not refuse."

"Apologize for saying you 'had to' do this. There were other options and you know it," user @TessaDare wrote in a series of posts retweeted thousands of times. "Apologize for creating and allowing a corporate culture that says it's okay to treat passengers with such disregard and disdain."

Fellow passenger Jayse D. Anspach, who goes by @JayseDavid on Twitter, wrote: "No one volunteered (to leave), so @United decided to choose for us. They chose an Asian doctor and his wife."

"It looked like he was knocked out, because he went limp and quiet," Anspach wrote, "and they dragged him out of the plane like a rag doll."

Another video shows the distressed man, still disheveled from the wrangle, returned to the cabin, clinging onto a curtain at the back of the plane and repeating: "Just kill me. Kill me," and "I have to go home," as blood streaked down his mouth.

Much of the online uproar surrounded the appropriateness of removing a paying customer in order to accommodate airline staff.

"They bloodied a senior citizen & dragged him off the plane so THEIR OWN STAFF could take his seat," one Twitter user wrote.

Other social media users questioned whether the man would have been removed as forcefully had he not been Asian.

Outrage also erupted on Chinese social media, with the topic attracting more than 130 million views on its Weibo platform by Tuesday afternoon.

Many users focused on comments from a fellow passenger reported in the Washington Post, who said the man dragged off the plane said he was "being selected because I'm Chinese."

Typical comments also included calls to boycott United, including from high-profile users like comedian Joe Wong, and Liu Qiangdong, founder of e-commerce giant JD.com.

"This makes me recall the nightmare experiences I had the three times I flew with United Airlines," Liu told his more than 3 million followers.

"United's service is definitely the worst in the world!"

Late last month, two teenage girls dressed in leggings were denied boarding on a United flight from Denver to Minneapolis because their form-fitting pants did not conform to the dress code for employees or family members using free passes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
United Airlines faces backlash after dragging man from plane

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
United Airlines is facing a turbulent public reaction over its treatment of a passenger who was physically dragged from a flight. A video of the incident showed a man identified as Kentucky physician David Dao, who was traveling on United Airlines flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville, forcibly removed when the flight was oversold Sunday night.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The latest London terror attack took place on Oxford Circus and Oxford Street - police are currently in the area with Selfridges on lockdwon. The next terror attack took place on a Tube train at Parsons Green station on Friday September 15. We'll bring you the latest news and updates here. The Parsons Green terror attack comes after the London Bridge terror attack killed eight people on Saturday June 3. On February 22 the Westminster attacker killed police officer and four pedestrians. There was another terror attack in Finsbury Park on June 19.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
London terror attack updates, news, arrests, victims | Express.co.uk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The latest London terror attack took place on Oxford Circus and Oxford Street - police are currently in the area with Selfridges on lockdwon. The next terror attack took place on a Tube train at Parsons Green station on Friday September 15. We'll bring you the latest news and updates here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
LONDON - ISIS has seen its income drop by 80 percent in two years as it loses territory and the oil and tax revenue that comes with it, according to a study of its finances.

The self-declared caliphate has seen average monthly income plunge from $81 million in the second quarter of 2015 to just $16 million in the same period this year, according to IHS Markit, a global data-monitoring company.

The report came as Iraq declared victory over the terror group in Iraq after government forces recaptured a key mosque in the former ISIS stronghold of Mosul on Thursday.

In Syria, rebel forces have advanced into the outskirts of ISIS-held Raqqa while government forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes are threatening to dislodge its positions near Deir al-Zour.

Shrinking territory is a big problem for the militant extremist group. Unlike other terror networks such as al Qaeda, ISIS regards itself as a state, running sharia courts, schools and even its own currency. It has been meeting the high cost of this apparatus by seizing assets such as oil refineries and imposing taxes and fines in the areas it controls.

ISIS' self-declared caliphate last week spanned an estimated 13,980 square miles - roughly the size of Maryland - according to IHS Markit. That's 40 percent smaller than at the start of the year, and 60 percent less than in January 2015, when it covered an estimated 35,060 square miles.

" ISIS as we've known it is looking very much on the way out, but something else could replace it"

"Territorial losses are the main factor contributing to ISIS' loss of revenue," said Ludovico Carlino, senior Middle East analyst at IHS Markit. "Losing control of the heavily populated Iraqi city of Mosul, and oil rich areas in the Syrian provinces of Raqqa and Homs, has had a particularly significant impact on the group's ability to generate revenue."

While the Iraqi government appears assured of its victory in Mosul, there is still fighting in areas of the city populated by civilians. Between 15,000 and 20,000 noncombatants are trapped in the Old Mosul neighborhood, which still needs to be cleared, according to Joint Operation Command spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool.

Still, IHS Markit's findings echo a similar report published in February by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) at King's College, London, which said ISIS' income had dropped by more than half from an estimated $1.9 billion in 2014 to $870 million last year.

David Butter, an associate fellow at the U.K. think tank Chatham House, said ISIS had developed various ways to extract money from its enclaves - but all were ultimately dependent on controlling territory, so imperiled by the recent sweeping battlefield losses.

"When it really came to the fore in July 2014, it had already developed financing streams within Iraq from protection money and from under-the-radar taxation," he told NBC News. "There was a very broad tax base on farmers and traders ... anything that moved would be taxed, and even things that didn't move.

"However, its longer-term model depended on controlling assets and territory that it could tax or derive revenue from and that's slipping away from them," he said.

Airstrikes have also disabled many of the oil facilities that had fallen into militant hands.

IHS Markit said it was not just oil and tax revenue that was in decline for ISIS, but also income from smuggling, confiscation and other illicit activities - forcing it to concentrate on finding money for its fighting forces.

Related: ISIS Leader Who Approved Sex Slaves Killed by U.S. Airstrike

"Although ISIS still appears to be involved in some commercial activity, especially oil production, there are indications that it is attempting to increase its financial 'reserves,' accelerating the shift from a bureaucratic and centralized quasi-state economy towards funding a future insurgency through a real war-economy," said IHS Markit's Carlino.

"An attempt to force people living in the caliphate to pay all transactions with the Golden Dinar - the group's currency announced last year - is the most evident indicator of this trend."

Eckart Woertz, senior research fellow at CIDOB (Barcelona Center for International Affairs) in Spain, said the militants were even losing out on money from agriculture as it lost control of farming areas in northeast Syria.

"Agriculture is not an unimportant source of income for them," he told NBC News.

Woertz explained that ISIS had previously been able to seize the wages of civil servants who lived in militant-held zones but were still being paid government wages. However, Iraq had ended the practice of paying wages into ISIS-controlled areas, cutting off a revenue stream to the militants.

"It is also not a winning brand anymore," Woertz said. "When it was gaining control of areas it had an image of invincibility for a little while - or was able to project that image on social media - but now it is a losing brand" that attracts less overseas support in the form of donations.

Related: U.S. Fears New Threat From ISIS Drones

"As far as they want to be a state, they have failed, or are about to fail," Woertz said.

However, despite ISIS's "caliphate" project appearing increasingly unsustainable, experts warned that conditions in the region were still ripe for Islamist violence.

"A great deal will depend on effective governance in areas [liberated from ISIS]," said Butter of Chatham House. "But it is still quite a mess. There are a lot of people pushing ISIS-style ideology and they may find some receptiveness in Iraq if the country continues to be governed in the way it has been.

"ISIS as we've known it is looking very much on the way out, but something else could replace it," he added. "The ideology behind it is quite virulent."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ISIS revenue plummets 80 percent as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
LONDON - ISIS has seen its income drop by 80 percent in two years as it loses territory and the oil and tax revenue that comes with it, according to a study of its finances.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tillerson had earlier refused to use the term when describing the Myanmar military's actions in the country's western Rakhine State, saying instead he was "very concerned" about the reports.

"What we know occurred in Rakhine state ... has a number of characteristics of crimes against humanity," he said on November 15, after an official visit to Myanmar.

"Whether it meets all the criteria of ethnic cleansing we continue to determine ourselves."

But on Wednesday, the US's top diplomat was unequivocal in his statement denouncing the actions of Myanmar's military, while still offering cautious support for civilian leaders who share power with the military under Myanmar's government structure.

"No provocation can justify the horrendous atrocities that have ensued," Tillerson said after acknowledging the deadly attack on security forces by a Rohingya militia that triggered the current crisis.

"These abuses by some among the Burmese military, security forces, and local vigilantes have caused tremendous suffering. ... After a careful and thorough analysis of available facts, it is clear that the situation in northern Rakhine state constitutes ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya."

The United States has so far walked a fine line since the crisis erupted in August. Administration officials have sought to temper the violence while avoiding any criticism that could jeopardize the fragile power-sharing agreement between civilian leaders and the military, which the United States welcomed and supports.

Even as State Department officials announced their decision to call the violence "ethnic cleansing," they were careful not to attribute the violence directly to Myanmar's democratically elected leadership. They also pointed out that the designation carries no specific legal consequences, though the administration is considering what other steps it could take.

"The term 'ethnic cleansing' is not defined in the context of either international law or domestic law," a senior State Department official cautioned. "However, it is a descriptive term, and it carries with it this sense of urgency."

The United States is considering additional steps it can take with other nations or unilaterally, a second senior official said, including possible targeted sanctions. More sweeping sanctions, the officials said, would not be productive.

While the Trump administration is not specifically calling out Myanmar's government for the acts of ethnic cleansing, the official said they hope it "will increase pressure on the parties to reach an accommodation about repatriation of people who are displaced, and also pressure on the military in Burma and the civilian government to work quickly to respond to events on the ground."

Tillerson's statement comes less than a week before Pope Francis is due to touch down in Myanmar for a week-long visit of the region, including a trip to Bangladesh. He called again for an official investigation into the crisis, saying those who were responsible must be held accountable.

Authorities in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have a long history of violence and oppression against the predominantly Muslim Rohingya people who live in the country's west, but in recent months the crisis has intensified.

Since August 25, an estimated 615,000 Rohingya have fled across the border into neighboring Bangladesh, bringing with them stories of mass murder, rape and extensive destruction of homes and property.

In an exclusive CNN report released in November, refugees described the horrors they'd witnessed trying to reach the relative safety of the Bangladesh camps.

"They killed and killed and piled the bodies up high. It was like cut bamboo," said Mumtaz, a Rohingya woman from the village of Tula Toli in western Myanmar, who woke up to find herself on a mound of charred bodies.

"In the pile there was someone's neck, someone's head, someone's leg. I was able to come out, I don't know how."

Myanmar has repeatedly denied claims it is deliberately attacking Rohingya civilians, saying it is fighting against a terrorist insurgency in the province. The country's military recently exonerated itself of any wrongdoing following an investigation.

However, Tillerson is not the first world leader to call out Myanmar for engaging in ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya.

British Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said on November 13 the actions of the military in Rakhine State "looks like ethnic cleansing," adding it was a "major humanitarian crisis."

Two months earlier, just a few weeks after the violence erupted, UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said Myanmar's military operation was a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

On Wednesday, it was announced the Pope would meet with the head of Myanmar's military as part of his visit, as well as separately with a small group of Rohingya refugees.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
us secretary of state: myanmar clearly 'ethnic cleansing' the rohingya - cnnpolitics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tillerson: Myanmar clearly 'ethnic cleansing' the Rohingya

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tillerson had earlier refused to use the term when describing the Myanmar military's actions in the country's western Rakhine State, saying instead he was "very concerned" about the reports. "What we know occurred in Rakhine state ... has a number of characteristics of crimes against humanity," he said on November 15, after an official visit to Myanmar.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and a range of other impacts will be seen as the climate changes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The US president has threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if his country is forced to defend itself or its allies.

North Korea has conducted its sixth nuclear test, threatened to fire off missiles towards the US island territory of Guam and said it might test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean.

And all this comes amid reports that Pyongyang may have finally succeeded in miniaturising a nuclear weapon that could fit on an inter-continental missile - a prospect long dreaded by the US and its Asian allies.

Is this a precursor to military conflict?

Experts say you should not panic - just yet. This is why:

1. Nobody wants war

This is one of the most important things to keep in mind. A war on the Korean peninsula serves no-one's interests.

The North Korean government's main goal is survival - and direct conflict with the US would seriously jeopardise it. As BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus notes, any North Korean attack against the US or its allies in the current context could quickly spiral into a wider war - and we have to assume the Kim Jong-un government is not suicidal.

In fact, this is why North Korea has been trying so hard to become a nuclear-armed power. Having this capability, it reasons, would protect the government by raising the costs of toppling it. Kim Jong-un does not want to go the way of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi or Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

What damage could North Korea do without nuclear weapons?

Trump and Kim call each other mad

Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul told the UK's Guardian newspaper there was "very little probability of conflict" but North Koreans were equally "not interested in diplomacy" at this point.

"They want to get the ability to wipe out Chicago from the map first, and then they will be interested in diplomatic solutions," Mr Lankov said.

What about a pre-emptive US strike?

The US knows that a strike on North Korea would force the government there to retaliate against US allies South Korea and Japan.

This would result in a massive loss of life, including the deaths of thousands of Americans - troops and civilians.

Additionally, Washington does not want to risk any nuclear-tipped missiles being fired off towards the US mainland.

Finally, China - Pyongyang's only ally - has helped to prop up the North Korean government precisely because its collapse is deemed to be a strategically worse outcome. US and South Korean troops just across the Chinese border is a prospect that Beijing does not want to have to face - and that is what war would bring.

2. What you are seeing are words, not actions

President Trump may have threatened North Korea with language uncommon for a US president but this does not mean the US is actively moving on to a war footing.

As one anonymous US military official told Reuters news agency back in August: "Just because the rhetoric goes up, doesn't mean our posture changes."

New York Times columnist Max Fisher agrees: "These are the sorts of signals, not a leader's offhand comments, that matter most in international relations."

What is more, after North Korea's sixth nuclear test in early September and missile tests over Japan, the US has reverted to a tried and true tactic: squeezing Pyongyang through UN Security Council and unilateral sanctions.

And its diplomats are still speaking hopefully of returning to the negotiating table - pointing to support from China and Russia.

These send conflicting signals to Pyongyang but also moderate the tough rhetoric coming from President Trump.

The North Korea crisis in 300 words

What missiles does North Korea have?

Decoding Kim's nuclear Pacific threat

Still, some analysts say a misinterpreted move in the current tense environment could lead to an accidental war.

"There could be a power outage in North Korea that they mistake as a part of a pre-emptive attack," Daryl Kimball, of US think tank Arms Control Association, told the BBC.

"The United States might make a mistake on the [Demilitarised Zone]. So there are various ways in which each side can miscalculate and the situation escalates out of control".

It is worth noting that US bombers recently flew close to North Korea in a show of force.

Days later North Korea's foreign minister said Pyongyang had the right to shoot down US bombers as President Trump had "declared war" on North Korea - a reference to a particularly pugnacious tweet from Mr Trump.

However it is not the first time that North Korea has accused the US of declaring war on it.

3. We have been here before

As former US Assistant Secretary of State PJ Crowley points out, the US and North Korea came close to armed conflict in 1994, when Pyongyang refused to allow international inspectors into its nuclear facilities. Diplomacy won out.

Over the years, North Korea has regularly made incendiary threats against the US, Japan and South Korea, several times threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire".

And Mr Trump's rhetoric - in content, if not style - is also not exactly unprecedented from a US president.

"In many different forms, albeit not as colourful, the US has always said that if North Korea ever attacks, the regime will cease to exist," Mr Crowley writes.
PJ Crowley: Where to now after 'fire and fury'?
The difference this time, he adds, is the US president has appeared to suggest he might take pre-emptive action (though Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has played this down.)

This kind of unpredictable, bellicose rhetoric coming from the White House is unusual and does have people worried, analysts say.

South Korea - the US ally with the most to lose from a confrontation with the North - has called for a cooling of rhetoric from both Pyongyang and the White House.

No one wants Kim Jong-un to think an attack might be imminent.
Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
North Korea-US tension: Should you worry?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The US president has threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if his country is forced to defend itself or its allies. North Korea has conducted its sixth nuclear test, threatened to fire off missiles towards the US island territory of Guam and said it might test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Interior Department has been banned indefinitely from using its official Twitter accounts after sharing two tweets Friday that appeared unflattering and critical of the Trump administration, according to reports.

"All bureaus and the department have been directed by incoming administration to shut down Twitter platforms immediately until further notice," according to an email obtained by The Washington Post and sent to Park Service employees.

In another email obtained by Gizmodo.com, Park Service employees were told the "Twitter stand down means we will cease use of Twitter immediately. However, there is no need to suspend or delete government accounts until directed."

The directive came after the National Park Service's Twitter account retweeted Washington Post reporter Binyamin Appelbaum, who shared a picture comparing the size of the crowd at the National Mall during the 2009 inauguration for Barack Obama and Friday's inauguration for Donald Trump. Attendance was noticeably smaller this year.

The National Park Service no longer provides actual crowd size estimates at the Mall following a dispute over questions about the Million Man March's attendance in 1995.

The other retweet mentioned that the White House's official site had taken down pages about civil rights, climate change and health care. Both retweets have since been deleted.

Despite the apparent Twitter ban, the National Park Service did tweet again Saturday to say they "regret the mistaken RTs from our account yesterday" without explaining why it occurred.

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the Twitter suspension. It remains without an official secretary since the Senate has yet to confirm Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., but career civil servants are running it temporarily, The Post reported.

A man was shot and seriously wounded late Friday in Seattle near protests against a lecture by far-right activist Milo Yiannopoulos but it was not immediately clear if the incidents were related.

Police said in a statement the victim was shot in the abdomen and was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.

Seattle police said that a "person of interest" had turned himself in to University of Washington campus police and was being questioned.

Protests against President Trump's inauguration were held around the country Friday, some of which - including in Washington, D.C. - saw violence or acts of vandalism.

A crowd had gathered in Red Square, a large open space on the Seattle campus of the University of Washington, to protest Yiannopoulos' speech. British-born Yiannopoulos is the technology editor for the right-wing news and opinion website, Breitbart.

Police said in a statement that the shooting "followed a day of largely peaceful marches and rallies in the city, which were unfortunately book-ended by acts of vandalism and violence." They did not identify either the victim of the shooting or the person being questioned.

Police told a news conference the shooting victim was 25 years old, but a later police news release said he was 32. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

A large march is scheduled in Seattle for Saturday and police said they would have "a significant number of officers on hand" to ensure the safety of those participating.

Police departments in several cities reported arrests and property damage during protests over the inauguration of President Donald Trump. In Seattle, police responded to a man shot near a demonstration.

New Orleans police arrested 15 people stemming from protests. Police Superintendent Michael Harrison said an "anarchist group" broke off from a protest and smashed windows of two police cars. Two officers were injured, he said.

Portland, Oregon, police used pepper spray on a group trying to cross a bridge, NBC affiliate KGW reported. Police said balls of ice and eggs were thrown at officers. Thousands protested downtown, according to the station. There were five arrests.

Three people were arrested on graffiti charges during a march of around 200 in Oakland, California, police said. More than 200 were arrested in Washington, D.C. In Seattle police responded to a man who was shot in the abdomen near a protest, authorities said, but circumstances were not immediately clear.

President Donald Trump was congratulated by soldiers stationed in Afghanistan via live video link at the Salute to Our Armed Services inaugural ball, and told the troops "we're with you a thousand, a thousand, a thousand percent."

The singer of the hit song and Hillary Clinton campaign anthem "Fight Song" said she did not give permission to a musical act that played the piece during a President Donald Trump celebration Friday night.

The Piano Guys claimed on Twitter that their performance of the song at the Liberty Ball was not intended to mock Clinton's failed presidential campaign and said it "had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton or politics."

Singer Rachel Platten on social media Friday said The Piano Guys did not ask permission and "nor did I or anyone on my team know of, approve or endorse their decision to play Fight Song tonight."

The Piano Guys acknowledged that they did not ask permission but said, "We love Rachel and we love her song."

President Donald Trump hours after he was sworn in signed an executive order aimed at "minimizing the economic burden" of Obamacare "pending repeal."

The order, Trump's first since being inaugurated Friday, broadly tells administration officials to waive or delay provisions or requirements of Obamacare that pose a financial burden.

The order also says "It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," commonly called Obamacare. Trump and other Republicans have pledged to repeal and replace the health care law, President Obama's signature achievement.

Police in Washington, D.C., said 217 people were arrested and charged with rioting after some demonstrations in the nation's capital turned violent on Donald Trump's Inauguration Day.

Six police officers were injured, but the injuries were described as minor. At least four businesses were vandalized and sustained "significant damage" and a limousine was set on fire, police said. Witnesses said some of those involved were self-described "anarchists."

Read More

The Senate easily confirmed two of President Donald Trump's cabinet nominees just a few hours after Trump's swearing in at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol.

Retired Gen. James Mattis was confirmed to be defense secretary by a vote of 98-1 vote. And another retired general, John Kelly, was confirmed to lead the Department of Homeland Security by a vote of 88 - 11. Only Democrats voted against Kelly.

Read More

On the sidelines of the Capitol building, people sent messages to President Donald Trump and here's what they had to say.

The nation's capital is bracing for more trouble Friday evening after Donald Trump's inauguration day was marred by noisy demonstrations, shoving matches and sporadic clashes with cops that resulted in nearly 100 arrests.

Load More Posts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Interior Department has been banned indefinitely from using its official Twitter accounts after sharing two tweets Friday that appeared unflattering and critical of the Trump administration, according to reports. "All bureaus and the department have been directed by incoming administration to shut down Twitter platforms immediately until further notice," according to an email obtained by The Washington Post and sent to Park Service employees.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Six people have died and 20 people are in critical care after a huge fire engulfed a west London tower block on Tuesday night.

The building is still on fire and many people are unaccounted for.

What happened?

The fire was reported at the 24-storey block, Grenfell Tower, in north Kensington, 00:54 BST.

It is believed to have started on the fourth floor and spread incredibly quickly.

Forty fire engines and around 200 firefighters went to tackle the blaze.

Latest updates as fire rips through tower block

London tower block fire: In pictures

How many victims are there?

Six people have died, according to police, with the number expected to rise.

Seventy-four people have been treated in hospital, according to the London Ambulance Service. Six hospitals - St Mary's, Chelsea and Westminster, Royal Free, St Thomas', Charing Cross Hospital and King's College Hospital - have received patients.

St Mary's said it is treating 16 patients, three of whom are critical. Charing Cross Hospital is treating four patients, but none is critical. St Thomas' Hospital has confirmed that four patients have been treated. Chelsea and Westminster, Royal Free and Kings College Hospital have treated 25, 12 and 12 patients respectively.

London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton said a "number" of firefighters had suffered minor injuries.

Eyewitnesses have said some people may be trapped in the building, which contains about 120 flats.

Notting Dale ward councillor Judith Blakeman, who lives across the road from the block, said between 400 and 600 people live in the building.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said fire crews only managed to reach the 12th floor at the height of the fire.

The Met Police has set up an emergency number - 0800 0961 233 - for anyone concerned about friends or family.

People who live in the block, but have left, are being urged to make themselves known to the authorities so that they know they are safe.
Baby 'dropped to safety from tower fire'
What caused the fire?

It is not yet known what caused the fire.

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said "a full investigation will need to be undertaken at the first possible opportunity".
How are fires fought in high-rise blocks?
Where is the tower block?

Grenfell Tower is on Latimer Road, in west London.

It's part of the Lancaster West Estate, a social housing complex of almost 1,000 homes, in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The tower block is near Westfield shopping centre in White City and the A40 - a major route for traffic entering and leaving the west of London.

What do we know about Grenfell Tower?

Grenfell Tower was built in 1974 by Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council.

A two-year £10m refurbishment - which was part of a wider transformation of the estate - was completed by Rydon Construction last year. Work included new exterior cladding, replacement windows and a communal heating system.

There was also extensive remodelling of the bottom four floors, creating nine additional homes, and improvements to communal facilities.

Rydon said it was "shocked to hear of the devastating fire" adding that the work "met all required building control, fire regulation and health & safety standards".

The tower is managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) on behalf of the council.

Robert Black, chief executive of KCTMO, said: "The fire at Grenfell Tower is devastating and the reports of injury and losses of life absolutely heartbreaking.

"Along with my colleagues, I have been supporting residents since the early hours, working with the emergency services and the community.

"Currently we're focusing on helping those residents, and London Fire Brigade is investigating the safety of the tower's structure, but we will issue a further statement in due course."

How safe was the tower block?

The local Grenfell Action Group had claimed, before and during the refurbishment, the block constituted a fire risk and residents had warned that access to the site for emergency vehicles was "severely restricted".

In February 2013 residents warned fire safety equipment, including fire extinguishers, had not been tested for 12 months.

The tower block was given a medium fire risk rating - defined as a normal fire risk - in 2016 following completion of the refurbishment by the London Fire Brigade and Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council.

The council insists the block has been regularly inspected, but London Mayor Sadiq Khan said safety and maintenance issues would have to be looked at.
Concerns raised about Grenfell Tower 'for years'
Geoff Wilkinson, a fire and building inspector, told the BBC that the Grenfell Tower block "didn't perform in the way you'd expect a building to perform" once it caught fire as "you'd expect it to be contained to an individual apartment".

"Something has gone dramatically wrong here," he said.

The fire safety advice for Grenfell Tower residents was to "stay put" - unless the fire was affecting your own flat.

Michael Paramasivan, who lives on the seventh floor with his girlfriend and young daughter, said he ignored the advice.

"If we had stayed in that flat, we would've perished. My gut instinct told me just to get the girls out. I wrapped the little one up because of the smoke and I just got them out."

What are eyewitnesses saying?

Eyewitnesses said they saw people trapped inside the burning building screaming for help, and shouting for their children to be saved.

Some said they saw lights - thought to be mobile phones or torches - flashing at the top of the block of flats, and trapped residents coming to their windows - some holding children.

Eyewitness Jody Martin said: "I watched one person falling out, I watched another woman holding her baby out the window... hearing screams.

"I was yelling at everyone to get down and they were saying 'We can't leave our apartments, the smoke is too bad on the corridors.'"

Tiago Etienne, 17, said: "I saw children being thrown out of the building from as high as about the 15th floor. They were young - aged probably between four and eight. I saw three thrown out.

"I think they were being thrown out for the firefighters or police to catch. But I couldn't see from where I was who was at the bottom, and what they were catching them in."

Paul Munakr, who lives on the seventh floor, managed to escape, but said he was alerted to the fire not by fire alarms but by people on the street below, shouting "don't jump, don't jump".

Another resident, Zoe, who lives on the fourth floor, said she was woken by a neighbour banging on her door.

"The whole landing was thick with smoke. The smoke alarms weren't going off but the way it spread so quickly from the fourth floor, all the way up to the 23rd floor was scary."

The BBC's Andy Moore, who was at the scene, described watching debris falling from the building, and hearing explosions and breaking glass.

"The police keep pushing back their cordons, pushing back members of the public for fear the building might collapse," he said.
Grenfall Tower witnesses recall harrowing night
How can you help?

St Clement's Church has been collecting clothes, food and water for those affected - many of whom had been forced to escape the building in their night clothes. They now only want baby clothes and nappies, and say they will work out what else they need later.

An emergency rest centre has been opened for those now homeless at the Harrow Centre, in Freston Road. Local football clubs Queens Park Rangers (QPR) and Fulham have offered their help to those left homeless by the blaze.

The Rugby Portobello Trust is also acting as a rest centre, but only for evacuated people. Friends and families are asked not to go there.

A number of individuals have also reached out via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to offer accommodation and transport help.

Several crowdfunding pages have been set up for those affected by the blaze, with one raising more than £20,000 within hours.
This is what you can do to help
What other disruption is there?

The A40 - part of which is known as the Westway - is closed between Northern Roundabout and Marylebone Road.

London Underground has closed the Circle line and the Hammersmith & City line between Hammersmith and Edgware Road.

Kensington Aldridge Academy, the secondary school next to Grenfell Tower, is closed for the day.

People are being advised by police to stay away from the area, where roads are closed.

NHS England is asking Londoners to use its services "wisely" and, if they need medical attention, to "seek advice from NHS 111 in the first instance".

St Mary's Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital have asked people to only go to their A&E departments in an emergency.
Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning Are you in the area? Did you witness the events? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your stories. Do not endanger yourself.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:

WhatsApp: +44 7525 900971

Send pictures/video to yourpics@bbc.co.uk

Upload your pictures / video here

Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSay

Send an SMS or MMS to 61124 or +44 7624 800 100

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
London fire: What we know so far about Grenfell Tower - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Six people have died and 20 people are in critical care after a huge fire engulfed a west London tower block on Tuesday night. The building is still on fire and many people are unaccounted for. The fire was reported at the 24-storey block, Grenfell Tower, in north Kensington, 00:54 BST.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
These are the victims of the Florida school shooting | CNN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A football coach, an athletic director and young, fresh-faced students were among the 17 people killed by a gunman at a high school in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's lunchtime on a Tuesday, and the kids are piling into a pizzeria booth in Coral Springs, Fla., to plot a revolution. "The adults know that we're cleaning up their mess," says Cameron Kasky, an 11th-grader at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who started the #NeverAgain movement to curb gun violence three weeks earlier in his living room. "It's like they're saying, 'I'm sorry I made this mess,'" adds buzzcut senior Emma González, "while continuing to spill soda on the floor."

Kasky and González are sitting with two more of the movement's leaders, Alex Wind and Jaclyn Corin. Except they're not sitting, exactly. They're crouching diagonally on the seat and leaning back on one another's knees in order to devour their calzones while maintaining as much physical contact as possible. Corin throws a crouton into González's mouth. Kasky uses Corin's knees as a pillow. The conversation turns from their fellow organizer David Hogg ("So laser-focused," González says, that "he could make his body get pregnant if he wanted to") to the conspiracy theory that they're actors being paid by shadowy donors (prompting Kasky to ask why his credit card was recently declined at McDonald's) to their prolific trolling of the NRA. They agree that the gun lobby's spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, is "very hot but kind of scary," as González puts it.

The pizza joint is a few hundred yards away from the school where 17 of their peers and teachers were murdered a month ago. At 2:21 p.m. on Valentine's Day, according to authorities, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, a former student, entered the freshman building armed with an AR-15 and opened fire into four classrooms on the first floor. Corin had just delivered carnations to the building to raise funds for junior prom; she had handed one flower to a girl who was shot minutes later. After the fire alarm went off during his AP environmental science class, Hogg took a video of students crouching inside a tiny classroom to hide from the shooter. The video went viral, landing him a recurring spot on the cable-TV circuit. The next day, Kasky invited Wind and Corin over to his house to plan a march for gun reform. Together, they started the #NeverAgain hashtag on Twitter.

Most of these kids cannot vote, order a beer, make a hotel reservation or afford a pizza without pooling some of their allowance. On the surface, they're not so different from previous generations of idealistic teenagers who set out to change the world, only to find it is not so easy. Yet over the past month, these students have become the central organizers of what may turn out to be the most powerful grassroots gun-reform movement in nearly two decades. For much of the rest of the country, numbed and depressed by repeated mass shootings, the question has become, Can these kids actually do it?

No one thinks it will be easy. Gun violence in America is one of those problems that can feel truly hopeless. The U.S. has only 4.4% of the world's population, yet it accounts for roughly 42% of the world's guns, according to the comprehensive 2007 Small Arms Survey. And roughly 31% of the world's mass shooters are American, according to a University of Alabama study. Even as mass-shooting deaths mount, our Second Amendment has made gun rights a third-rail issue: roughly 90% of Americans agree on "common-sense" solutions like universal background checks, yet absolutists stand in the way of any meaningful action.

After Adam Lanza killed 20 first-graders and six staff members at a Connecticut elementary school in December 2012, politicians tried to tackle the issue. President Obama issued Executive Orders to strengthen the background-check system and study gun violence, and several states tightened gun restrictions. Yet Congress failed to pass a modest bipartisan bill to close loopholes for gun sales. In the five years since, a familiar pattern has emerged. Every month or so, a killer shoots innocent people at random. There is a brief period of mourning. Democrats offer feeble pleas for new gun limits; Republicans offer "thoughts and prayers." No substantial laws are passed, and the nation moves on. This was the response when Omar Mateen killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in 2016; when Stephen Paddock massacred 58 people at a Las Vegas concert last October; when Devin Patrick Kelley killed 26 people in a Sutherland Springs, Texas, church in November.

But in the days after the Parkland shooting, something different happened. The Parkland kids, at once tearful and cutting, publicly called out the NRA's influence on national politics, and shamed the leaders they considered responsible for the nation's lax gun laws. (Privately, they have dubbed Florida Governor Rick Scott "Voldemort" and called Senator Marco Rubio some names that are unprintable.) Their voices quickly went viral. González had no Twitter account before the shooting-11 days later, she had more followers than the NRA. They called for specific changes like a renewed assault-weapons ban, universal background checks and digitized gun-ownership records.

Perhaps most important, the Parkland kids painted the NRA and their allies as the mortal enemies of the roughly 50 million schoolkids growing up in what Kasky calls "the mass-shooting generation." They took the mantle of "personal protection" from the gun lobby, while reframing the larger gun debate along generational lines.

And so news that was once met with sad resignation now drives teenagers to march in the streets. On March 14, nearly a million kids across the country left class for the National School Walkout to protest the school-shooting epidemic. Support for stronger gun regulations spiked to 68% after the shooting, up from 60% last November, according to a Politico/Morning Consult survey. Public support for the NRA is down to 37%, according to a WSJ/NBC poll, the first time since 2000 that the organization has been viewed more negatively than positively. Companies from Delta Airlines to Hertz to MetLife cut ties with the NRA. Dick's Sporting Goods announced it would stop carrying assault weapons. Florida, known for its historically soft gun policies, passed a bill March 9 that bans bump stocks, imposes a waiting period, raises the minimum age to buy a weapon and allows cops to take guns from mentally disturbed people. Sixty-seven NRA-endorsed Republicans voted for the bill, and the gun-friendly GOP Governor Scott signed it.

How a movement catches fire is always a mystery, but the Parkland kids seem matched for this moment. They're young enough to be victimized by a school shooting, but old enough to shape the aftermath. Like many teenagers, they're at a peculiar stage in their lives where they feel at once vulnerable and invincible, highly social yet impervious to the etiquette expected from adults. Their bombastic style mirrors President Trump's: they call their enemies names and hurl sick burns at politicians and lobbyists as if they're shouting across the locker room.

None of which means they'll actually succeed, and the kids are not entirely naive about their chances. They know the GOP-controlled Congress is unlikely to pass meaningful new gun laws. Although Trump briefly signaled support for strengthening background checks, he quickly abandoned that position. Nor do the Parkland kids speak for everyone, by a long shot: polls show that young people as a whole do not necessarily favor stricter gun laws than their parents. Which means the kids face the same question as the movements before them: If this government doesn't respond to their demands, did their movement make a difference?

The first big test will come on March 24 with the student-led March for Our Lives, which already has registered more than 800 demonstrations in all 50 states and on six continents. ("Sorry, Antarctica, y'all are gonna get shot," Kasky quips.) The organizers plan to allow only young speakers to address the Washington march, and only artists under 24 can submit official poster designs. The march is meant to expand voter registration among like-minded members of the school-shooting generation: the kids that grew up post-Columbine, who huddled behind barricades during active-shooter drills and learned to tape construction paper over classroom windows.

From there, the Parkland kids plan to make gun reform the central issue for young voters in the midterms. "We're going to show these politicians that we're coming for them," says Hogg. Kasky is more ambitious. "The world failed us," he says, "and we're here to make a new one that's going to be easier on the next generation. If you're against that, then get out."

The youth revolt is being planned in a donated office space in a strip mall, next to a mediocre deli in a small town near Parkland. To get inside the three windowless rooms where the #NeverAgain movement is headquartered, you have to knock three times on a locked glass door and then loudly identify yourself so the kids are sure you're not an armed stalker. (They have received death threats.) Inside the lair, there are boxes of March for Our Lives T-shirts and a bust of Robert F. Kennedy next to whiteboards with schedules of conference calls. On one wall there's a collage of mail that runs the gamut from encouraging to obscene. (An excerpt from one letter, sent to 17-year-old Parkland organizer Delaney Tarr: "Shut the f-ck up, you stupid f-cking c-nt.") On another there's a map of the U.S. where the teens have labeled the hundreds of sibling marches. A broom closet near the back bears a sheet of notebook paper that says Cameron Kasky's office, directly across from a tiny bathroom labeled Cameron Kasky's other office.

Everything crackles with a sense of ferocious optimism. It feels like the last rehearsal of a high school musical, halftime at state championships, the final days of senior year. The kids stream in and out on no particular schedule, tumble to the floor to read their fan mail, twirl around on chairs while composing tweets and crowd into a tiny conference room for calls with reporters or lawmakers. One day, they spent an afternoon making a video mocking NRA spokeswoman Loesch (they call her "the woman from the SuperBeets commercial" after digging up an old spot she did for a beet-juice product). Another day, they met with Representative Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat who represents Parkland in Congress. There's a sense that anything can happen in this little corner of the teenage universe, because all kinds of things can.

Gun politics have vexed adult organizers for decades, but so far the Parkland teens have had striking successes. Even though the kids are disappointed in the Florida bill ("It's like they tried to take a big step forward and then tripped," Hogg says), it's still the first significant piece of gun legislation to come out of the Florida legislature in at least 20 years. The March 14 school walkouts, organized by Women's March youth groups, surpassed the 750,000 protesters who flooded the Washington Mall for the Million Mom March in 2000 in what was then the largest gun-safety protest in U.S. history. "This youth movement is unprecedented," says Kris Brown, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which was formed by the organizations behind the 2000 march. "What's different here is that the children who are impacted are older, and they are able to give voice in a way that could not happen before."

The #NeverAgain organizers built a movement with the skills they learned in high school. Hogg, an aspiring journalist who studies TV production at Stoneman Douglas, has anointed himself the movement's "press secretary." Corin, the bubbly junior class president who did a 50-page term paper on gun control last year, organized roughly 100 students to travel to Tallahassee to lobby the state legislature. Kasky and Wind, both drama kids, have given some of the most emotional testimony about the shooting and their dead classmates. González gave a speech about the NRA's influence that was informed by an AP government lesson on special-interest groups.

The kids are social-media natives who have used Twitter to stir up the same kind of fervor Trump does. If the President can mock his enemies, they reason, then why can't high school students? "People always say, 'Get off your phones,' but social media is our weapon," says Corin. "Without it, the movement wouldn't have spread this fast."

Teens have always had a unique talent for humiliation, and social media only sharpens their knives. If the Parkland kids were targeting their classmates instead of powerful lobbyists or Senators, their taunts could be mistaken for bullying. But going up against the NRA, they're like mouthy Davids slinging stones at Goliath. "They're using Twitter as a means to ridicule, to dismiss, to brush past the usual criticisms and just say, 'These people are full of it,'" says Robert Spitzer, a professor of political science at SUNY Cortland who has written five books on gun policy. "The door for this has been opened by Donald Trump himself."

As teenagers who survived a school shooting, they're politically hard to hit: if the NRA or the GOP fight back, they are attacking young victims of a tragedy. One GOP candidate for the Maine house of representatives who called González a "skinhead lesbian" on Twitter faced so much online backlash that he dropped out of the race.

The students have had plenty of help. They've raised more than $4 million from small donors on the crowdfunding site GoFundMe, plus a couple million more from celebrities like George and Amal Clooney, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey. A top Hollywood PR firm is assisting with press requests pro bono, and Women's March organizer Deena Katz is volunteering as a consultant on the march. The gun-reform advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, backed by billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, has given out more than $1 million in grants to local organizers planning sibling marches around the country, and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is sending busloads of kids to Washington, D.C. Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer pledged $1 million to gun-safety groups' efforts to register more high school students to vote. "Our biggest problem is that we're getting too much help," says Corin.

They know that other youth campaigns against gun violence, including those led by black activists in urban communities, have not gotten the same financial support or media attention. "We came from an affluent area, and we're mostly white, and we have to use that privilege," says Tarr. The kids say they are trying to correct the imbalance. A letter from the Dream Defenders, a racial-justice group formed after the killing of Trayvon Martin, is hanging on the office wall. And in early March, the teens invited young activists from the Peace Warriors, a Chicago anti-violence group, to Parkland to discuss coordinating their efforts. "We're fighting for the same thing," says Arieyanna Williams, a high school senior from Chicago who has been working with the Peace Warriors since sophomore year. "We found our voice in Parkland. We didn't really have it here."

Inside the office, there is no adult supervision beyond Matt Deitsch and Kaylyn Pipitone, two 20-year-old college students and recent Stoneman Douglas alums who help with things that only adults can do, like signing contracts and insurance forms and paperwork for their 501(c)(4). "We want the grownups we need in this, and nothing more," says Kasky. "We only have people doing the things that as 17-year-olds we cannot." At an early #NeverAgain meeting, parents asked how they could help, recalls Alex Wind's mother.

The answer came back: "Order pizza."

The March for Our Lives almost certainly won't lead to major gun legislation in Congress this year. But the Parkland teens are taking the long view. To them, this movement is as much about mobilizing young voters as it is about gun violence. The voter-registration group HeadCount plans to dispatch roughly 5,000 volunteers to sign up young voters at U.S. marches. The Parkland kids say their goal is for 4 out of 5 young people to vote in November's midterm elections. "Either have the politicians pass legislation or set them up to be voted out," Kasky says. "It's a win-win." If only it were that simple. Only 39% of voters between 18 and 20 voted in the 2016 election, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, and only 14% of voters that age showed up to cast a ballot in the 2014 midterms. Previous turnout drives have not had much success.Not all young people vote Democratic, either. While Trump has a historically low approval rating among millennials (only 6% strongly approve of him, while 46% strongly disapprove), almost a third of millennials lean Republican, according to a Pew survey. Only 49% of 18-to-29-year-olds favored a renewed assault-weapons ban in a 2015 Pew survey, while more than half of respondents of other age groups did support a ban.

They envision a youth political movement that will address many of the other issues affecting the youngest Americans. Hogg says he would like to have a youth demonstration every year on March 24, harnessing the power of teenage anger to demand action on everything from campaign-finance reform to net neutrality to climate change. But even if none of this works-even if they never pass comprehensive gun reform, and net neutrality fails, and Citizens United endures, and climate-change legislation stalls-today's teenage rebels will become tomorrow's establishment leaders, informed by the experience that may already be shaping the gun debate.

And that, says Hogg, is the bottom line for politicians who side with the NRA. "You're gonna be smeared in the textbooks. Your legacy is gone," he says. "If you don't stand up with us now, you'll be standing against us."

- With reporting by Melissa Chan/New York

Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Parkland Students Are Taking on Politicians in the Gun Control Battle

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's lunchtime on a Tuesday, and the kids are piling into a pizzeria booth in Coral Springs, Fla., to plot a revolution. "The adults know that we're cleaning up their mess," says Cameron Kasky, an 11th-grader at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who started the #NeverAgain movement to curb gun violence three weeks earlier in his living room.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
From a fatal car crash to a data nightmare, turning-point scenarios played out in several corners of the technology industry this week.

Why it matters: The utopian promise of technological progress is giving way to the very thorny challenges of balancing innovation with social accountability. That means congressional hearings, investigations, probably at least some regulation - and a lot more skepticism about the promise of the tech-driven changes that are transforming our lives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 undisputed facts behind the Russia probe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From a fatal car crash to a data nightmare, turning-point scenarios played out in several corners of the technology industry this week. Why it matters: The utopian promise of technological progress is giving way to the very thorny challenges of balancing innovation with social accountability.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After sitting for the national anthem during the first three preseason games of the 2016 NFL season, the then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback met with former NFL player and Army veteran Nate Boyer to discuss the optics of his protest.

It was Boyer who helped him and his teammates come to the decision to kneel, a more respectful option. Kaepernick was on board.

Because then, as now, kneeling during the National Anthem was never about the anthem itself. It wasn't about the flag, or the military.

It was about race, and all of the struggles that come with being a minority in America.

The protest's black roots

There was no way the protests that Kaepernick started, which have gained new momentum in recent days, could ever be centered around anything other than race.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media at the outset of the controversy.

In 2016, almost 70% of active players on NFL rosters were black. Until last month, when a handful of white players joined in public sideline displays, every player who participated, whether with a bended knee or a raised fist, was black.

In November 2016 Kaepernick broadened the scope.

"I've been very clear from the beginning that I'm against systematic oppression," he told CSN Chicago. "Police violence is just one of the symptoms of that oppression. For me, that is something that needs to be addressed, but it's not the whole issue."

By that time, he and the handful of other players who had taken a knee were being excoriated, their jerseys used as doormats and bonfire fodder. They were called unpatriotic, ungrateful, disrespectful of flag, military and country.

The backlash may have been painted with broad strokes of red white and blue, but it couldn't hide the color line below. A 2016 poll about American's perceptions of NFL players revealed Kaepernick was the league's most disliked player. Of the results, 37% of white respondents said they disliked him "a lot." Only 2% of black respondents did.

Conversely, 42% of black respondents said they liked him "a lot" -- a huge jump from two years prior, when only 16% said so.

The need to prove their patriotism

It is often forgotten that Kaepernick and other early adopters, maligned as un-American and disrespectful, chose their form of protest carefully and with outside consultation.

"It baffles me that our protest is still being misconstrued as disrespectful to the country, flag and military personnel," 49ers safety Eric Reid wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times this week. Reid was one of the first to adopt Kaepernick's protest, kneeling beside his then-teammate during the last pre-season game of 2016. He was also privy to the perspective of Boyer, the veteran who counseled Kaepernick.

"We chose to kneel because it's a respectful gesture," Reid wrote. "I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy."

It was as if players had to prove their patriotism to legitimize their message.

Even now, every wave of red-blooded American backlash seems to drag the message back to where it began. Rarely does a player or sports figure speak in support of the protests without reiterating their essential American-ness.

"I understand why people are offended by people protesting the National Anthem," Eagles wide receiver Torrey Smith told ESPN.

"My father served 25 years. When he dies, he's going to be wrapped in an American flag. But my dad is also out of the Army, and he drives trucks all over the country, and he's a black man everywhere he goes, and sometimes he has racial incidents still today. That doesn't protect him, just because he served our country. And I think that's important."

The few white players who have joined the protests have also emphasized their patriotism when describing their reasons for joining the protest, while still placing race at the center of their reasoning.

"I, myself, will be raising children who don't look like me," said Seth DeValve, who is white and is married to a black woman. "I want to do my part as well to do everything I can to raise them in a better environment (than) we have right now."

The President's indictment

But then, at a rally for an Alabama Republican Senate candidate, President Donald Trump delivered comments to an overwhelmingly white audience that forced the movement in a different direction.

Upon seeing a player kneel, Trump said NFL owners should say, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he's fired. He's fired!"

"That's a total disrespect of our heritage. That's a total disrespect for everything we stand for," he continued.

To the audience in the room, it was a patriotic comment, and they erupted in cheers. Many who saw the event on TV heard it as a deeply coded indictment.

NFL owners are overwhelmingly white. And with few exceptions, these "sons of bitches" were black men. The inclusion of the word "heritage" also perked up ears as a loaded term often used in racist rhetoric that positions whiteness as the favored American condition.

Some of Trump's critics saw echoes of Charlottesville, where he was slow to disavow white supremacists and claimed there were "fine people" on both sides.

"What I had concern about was why in the world...he couldn't call those individuals -- the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists -- why couldn't he call them sons of bitches?" said Mark O'Brien, a Trump supporter disheartened by some of the President's latest comments.

With Trump's inflammatory comments on that Alabama stage, the President forced himself into the issue front and center. He forced the hand of NFL owners, coaches, teams and players, who now had to choose a side in a movement whose meaning was in danger of being diluted and distorted as it reached more and more corners.

And his words, instead of emboldening NFL owners to sanction players who kneel during the anthem, had the opposite effect.

The show of unity

A year after Kaepernick first took a knee, the gifted player -- who struggled on the field at times last season -- remains out of a job, ostracized by the league that once celebrated him.

The photos of the quarterback, defiant and largely alone in his gesture, seem like an ancient predecessor of the sudden images of unity that filled TV screens and social media after President Trump's comments. Entire NFL franchises stood arm in arm, with owners in suits wedged between their uniformed players. As before, the crowds sometimes jeered as players knelt, but there was an air of anticipation.

Suddenly, a fringe movement -- so divisive only days before -- was must-see TV. Announcers hyped the National Anthem preceding each game, the cameras lingering on each face as the music swelled. The NFL noted the moment by re-running a themed ad, titled "Unity."

A majority of teams disavowed Trump's statements while defending their players and the constitutional right to free speech. Only a few directly mentioned complaints about systemic racism that were central to the original protests.

Regardless, the reanimated controversy gave players a fresh opportunity to assert their beliefs.

"As a man, as a father, as an African American man, as somebody in the NFL, as one of those 'sons of bitches,' you know, yeah I take it personally," Miami Dolphins safety Michael Thomas told CNN Monday. "It's bigger than me, I have a daughter. She's going to have to live in this world. And I'm going to do whatever I have to do to make sure that she can look at her dad and be like, 'You did something. You tried to make a change.'"

The moment also became an opportunity for white allies to express their support. Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen in particular, issued a strong statement about the protests.

"The young, black athletes are not disrespecting America or the military by taking a knee during the anthem. They are respecting the best thing about America. It's a dog whistle to the racists among us to say otherwise," he said on air.

"They, and all of us, should protest how black Americans are treated in this country."

The tipping point?

When some owners in NASCAR, a traditionally white sport, came out and said they would fire any drivers or staff who did not stand for the anthem, President Trump praised them on Twitter -- moves that, in both cases, many commentators read as being inextricable from American notions about race.

The same day Trump tweeted, "The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race. It is about respect for our Country, Flag and National Anthem. NFL must respect this!"

So between the social media hashtags, the intense TV coverage and criticism from the highest office in the land, the #TakeAKnee movement has officially reached the mainstream.

But will it continue to gain steam? Will it keep its focus?

Will the more palatable notions of patriotism and unity eclipse the original protest against racism?

Some of the movement's biggest proponents see an opportunity for growth. Maybe a movement that began around issues of racial inequality can be strengthened by newfound unity.

"Yes, it is about race," the Dolphins' Thomas said. "It is about any of the inequalities in our communities, and people are going to continue to voice their opinion."

"I think we have a responsibility as athletes, as role models, as leaders in our communities, to really engage in these conversations," Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins told CNN Monday.

"And what brings people together more than football?"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the #takeaknee protests have always been about race. period. - cnn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The #TakeAKnee protests have always been about race. Period.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kneeling during the National Anthem was never about the anthem itself. It wasn't about the flag, or the military. And the backlash may have been painted with broad strokes of red white and blue, but it can't hide the color line below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 2006, Tarana Burke coined the phrase "Me Too" as a way to help women who had survived sexual violence. Fast-forward more than 10 years, and the phrase has been reignited as the slogan of the anti-sexual harassment movement. A movement that has rocked some of the most powerful men in entertainment and politics. A movement whose timeline continues to rapidly build. Read our full coverage and commentary of the #MeToo movement.

Dec. 7

Dylan Farrow pens op-ed about Woody Allen and asks, again, why the slew of sexual misconduct allegations against her adoptive father haven't made more of an impact on his career. Read the story.

Jan. 18

After several prominent figures in the restaurant industry, including celebrity chef Mario Batali, were accused of sexual misconduct, Chicago chefs and restaurateurs spoke out against rampant sexual harassment in kitchens. When asked about the challenges, Beverly Kim, chef/co-owner at Parachute restaurant in Avondale, spoke about "the acceptance of 'This is how it is, this is how restaurants are, and you've got to deal with it or you're out.' " Read the story.

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune

Feb. 3

In a Feb. 3 New York Times article, actress Uma Thurman accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of forcing himself on her sexually years ago in a London hotel room. Thurman also said that during filming, "Kill Bill" director Quentin Tarantino coerced her into driving a car she believed was faulty, and spitted in her face and choked her in scenes where other people are seen doing it on screen. Read the story.

Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images

Feb. 12

A key staffer in Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's political operation made unwanted advances to a female campaign worker and sent her inappropriate phone texts, Madigan acknowledged in cutting the longtime aide loose. Madigan praised Alaina Hampton, below, as a "courageous woman" for coming forward to complain. But in an interview with the Tribune, she said the action took far too long. Read the story.

Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune

Source: Chicago Tribune reporting
Copyright © 2018, Chicago Tribune

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2006, Tarana Burke coined the phrase "Me Too" as a way to help women who had survived sexual violence. Fast-forward more than 10 years, and the phrase has been reignited as the slogan of the anti-sexual harassment movement. A movement that has rocked some of the most powerful men in entertainment and politics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says the Spanish region has won the right to statehood following a contentious referendum that was marred by violence.

He said the door was open to a unilateral declaration of independence after Catalan officials said voters had backed secession with a 42.3% turnout.

Spain's government has warned it could suspend Catalan autonomy.

The constitutional court banned the vote and almost 900 people were hurt as police tried to stop it going ahead.

Officers from the national police and paramilitary Civil Guard seized ballot papers and boxes at polling stations.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Catalans had been fooled into taking part in an illegal vote.

More than 2.2 million people were reported to have voted, according to Catalan authorities, out of 5.3 million registered voters. Just under 90% of those who voted backed independence, they said.

A Catalan spokesman said more than 750,000 votes could not be counted because polling stations were closed and urns were confiscated.

Given the chaotic nature of the vote, the turnout and voting figures should be taken with a pinch of salt, says the BBC's Tom Burridge in Barcelona.

What have Catalan and Spanish leaders said?

"With this day of hope and suffering, the citizens of Catalonia have won the right to an independent state in the form of a republic," Mr Puigdemont said in a televised address.

"My government in the next few days will send the results of today's vote to the Catalan parliament, where the sovereignty of our people lies, so that it can act in accordance with the law of the referendum."

He said the European Union could no longer "continue to look the other way".

The Spanish prime minister spoke of a "mockery" of democracy.

"At this hour I can tell you in the strongest terms what you already know and what we have seen throughout this day. There has not been a referendum on self-determination in Catalonia," Mr Rajoy said.

Spain's justice minister warned that any declaration of independence could lead to article 155 of the country's constitution being invoked which allows the national government to intervene in the running of an autonomous region.

"We are not here to divide Spaniards... but if someone tries to declare independence on behalf of a part of Spain's territory, that cannot be done because it is beyond their powers," said Rafael Catalá.

What happens next?
Analysis: Tom Burridge, BBC News, Barcelona
Spain's complicated relationship with the region of Catalonia is headed for the unknown.

After violence by Spanish police, a declaration of independence by Catalonia's regional government seems more likely than ever before.

On Monday the government in Madrid will hold talks with Spanish parties to discuss a response to the biggest political crisis this country has seen in decades.
Read more from Tom
More than 40 trade unions and Catalan associations called a region-wide strike on Tuesday due to "the grave violation of rights and freedoms".

How bad was the violence?

TV images showed Spanish police kicking would-be voters and pulling women out of polling stations by their hair.

Catalan medical officials said 844 people had been hurt in clashes, including 33 police. The majority had minor injuries or had suffered from anxiety attacks.

How Barcelona and Madrid viewed the vote

The most powerful images of Catalan clashes

The reasons for the referendum

In Girona, riot police smashed their way into a polling station where Mr Puigdemont was due to vote, and forcibly removed those inside. He voted at another station.

The BBC's Tom Burridge in Barcelona witnessed police being chased away from one polling booth after they had raided it.

TV footage showed riot police using batons to beat a group of firefighters who were protecting crowds in Girona.

The national police and Guardia Civil - a military force charged with police duties - were sent into Catalonia in large numbers to prevent the vote.

The Catalan police - the Mossos d'Esquadra - have been placed under Madrid's control, however witnesses said they showed little inclination to use force on protesters.

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau, who voted blank on Sunday, condemned police actions against the region's "defenceless" population, but Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said police had "acted with professionalism and in a proportionate way".

Large crowds of independence supporters gathered in the centre of the regional capital Barcelona on Sunday evening, waving flags and singing the Catalan anthem. Anti-independence protesters have also held rallies in Barcelona and other Spanish cities.

How much voting took place?

Catalan authorities said 319 of about 2,300 polling stations across the region had been closed by police while the Spanish government said 92 stations had been sealed off.

Since Friday, thousands of people have occupied schools and other buildings designated as polling stations in order to keep them open.

Many of those inside were parents and their children, who remained in the buildings after the end of lessons on Friday and bedded down in sleeping bags on gym mats.

The anti-independence Societat Civil said there were voting irregularities, including the same people voting twice.

Catalonia, a wealthy region of 7.5 million people in north-eastern Spain, has its own language and culture.

It also has a high degree of autonomy, but is not recognised as a separate nation under the Spanish constitution.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Catalans 'win right to break with Spain'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says the Spanish region has won the right to statehood following a contentious referendum that was marred by violence. He said the door was open to a unilateral declaration of independence after Catalan officials said voters had backed secession with a 42.3% turnout.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Twenty-two people were killed and 116 injured in a suicide bombing at Manchester Arena.

Here's what we know about the attack so far.

What happened?

Attacker 22-year-old Salman Abedi detonated a home-made bomb in the arena's foyer as crowds were leaving a performance by US singer Ariana Grande just after 22:30 BST on 22 May.

The blast, between the main arena and neighbouring Victoria station, blew people off their feet and caused widespread panic. Witnesses described hearing an explosion and seeing a flash of fire.

Pictures of the aftermath show debris and casualties in the foyer area of the arena. Metal nuts and bolts were strewn around the floor among bodies. The smell of explosives was in the air, witnesses said.

How did people escape?

The bomb was detonated moments after Grande had performed her final song and fans had started making their way home.

People began scrambling for the arena's exits and were seen fleeing down the stairs from the foyer into the station.

People who had arrived to drive friends and relatives home were forced to go on a desperate hunt to find missing children.

More than 240 emergency calls were made; 60 ambulances and 400 police officers attended.

What happened in the foyer?

The foyer where the bomb went off is the busiest exit from the arena - housing the box office and leading to the car park and Victoria Station.

Photos from the scene have been leaked to the US media.

According to the New York Times, analysis of images of the scene reveal how the bomb's shrapnel penetrated metal doors and left marks on brickwork.

The paper said the authorities' review of the blast site shows the bodies of those killed were located in a circle around where the device was detonated - just outside the arena's main exit.

The photos also appear to show bloodstained fragments from the bomb and the backpack used by the attacker.

The images show the remains of a Karrimor backpack, a possible detonator, a 12-volt battery as well as metal nuts and screws.
Who carried out the attack?
Salman Abedi, was named by police as the suicide bomber shortly after the attack.

Abedi was one of three siblings and was born in Manchester on New Year's Eve 1994.

The family, of Libyan origin, lived at several addresses in Manchester, including properties which were raided by police.

Abedi attended Burnage Academy for Boys in Manchester between 2009 and 2011, before going to The Manchester College until 2013 and then Salford University in 2014.

BBC News was told the public called an anti-terrorism hotline after he expressed the views that "he was supporting terrorism" and "being a suicide bomber was ok", but Greater Manchester Police said it has not found any records of these calls taking place.

Abedi was arrested for minor offences in 2012 but was not known to the government's Prevent scheme.

It was later revealed that MI5 is to hold an inquiry into the way it dealt with warnings from the public that Abedi had expressed extremist views and was a potential threat.

Abedi left the UK on 15 April and travelled to Libya before returning back into the UK on the 18 May, the police investigation has found.

The so-called Islamic State group has claimed responsibility, but this has not been verified.

Who were the victims?

Victim Kelly Brewster 'heroically shielded niece'

What do we know about the suspect?

Victims named

All 22 victims have been named. The youngest victim to be named is eight-year-old Saffie Roussos, from Leyland, Lancashire.

Elaine McIver, an off-duty officer from Cheshire Police, was also among those killed. She was with her partner, Paul, and two children, all of whom were injured.

In total, 116 people were admitted to hospital in relation to the attack, NHS England said.

Sixty three people are still being treated in eight hospitals, including 23 patients who are in critical care.

The investigation

Twenty-two people have been arrested in the UK in connection with the attack, all of whom have now been released without charge.

Those arrested included Abedi's older brother, Ismail, 24, who was detained in Whalley Range the day after the bombing.

Abedi's younger brother Hasham, 20, was detained in Tripoli on suspicion of links with the so-called Islamic State group the day after the attack.

Reuters news agency told the BBC that Abedi's father, Ramadan, had also been detained in Libya.

The bomber's two cousins, Isaac and Abz Forjani, were both arrested the day after the attack and questioned by police for seven days.

The pair said Abedi had never admitted extremist views, and thought he may have been radicalised abroad.

On 23 May, police raided a flat in Granby Row, Manchester, that Abedi may have used before the attack on Monday night.

Twenty-nine house searches have been conducted by police.

Officers have examined Abedi's movements on CCTV and other interactions he had with people as well as phone calls he made.

Police have yet to rule out whether he was part of a wider network, although it is thought most likely that Abedi assembled the bomb himself.

It is less clear whether he acted alone in buying the components needed to make the device.

Police believe Abedi wanted to carry out the attack within days of returning to the UK after a month-long trip to Libya.

CCTV has shown him purchasing more items for the bomb soon after he arrived back, including buying nuts from a DIY store that were used for shrapnel as well, said Russ Jackson, head of the North West counter terrorism unit.

Abedi was also tracked going to and from the Banff Road area of Rusholme, where a white Nissan Micra was found.

The Micra - which was bought on 13 April - contained materials for bomb making and Abedi is forensically linked to the car, say police.

Detectives believe items were stored in it for a short period of time, either material to make a bomb or a pre-made charge. The actual assembly of all the parts appears to have been in the days immediately before the attack.

Police have appealed to the public for information relating to the car's movements on 14 April. They also released images of plastic barrels stored in the Nissan.

Meanwhile a search is ongoing at a landfill site for a blue suitcase thought to contain items Abedi discarded after having assembled the device.

Hashem Abedi left the UK at the same time as Salman on 15 April. He is currently detained in Libya, but British police have said they wish to interview him in relation to the attack.

Shortly after the bombing, police investigating the attack temporarily stopped sharing information with the US after leaks to the media.

UK officials were outraged when photos appearing to show debris from the attack appeared in the New York Times.

Next steps for police and MI5

Manchester the morning after

Anyone with information can call the anti-terror hotline on 0800 789321.

The police have also appealed to anyone with images or footage from the attack to upload it to ukpoliceimageappeal.co.uk or ukpoliceimageappeal.com

Extra security

After the attack, the UK terrorism threat level was raised from "severe" to "critical" for the first time since 2007.

The change indicated an attack was imminently expected.

Members of the armed forces replaced armed police at certain "key sites".

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said 984 servicemen and women were deployed as part of Operation Temperer - the government plan to put soldiers on the streets.

This freed up extra armed police officers for deployment at sporting events over the bank holiday weekend, including the FA Cup final.

Sporting events and venues in England also conducted major security reviews. Chelsea FC cancelled their Premier League victory parade.

Police Scotland said it was reviewing all "significant events" taking place within the next 14 days and increased the number of armed police on patrol.

The threat level was reduced to severe after a meeting of the government's emergency committee Cobra on 27 May.
Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Twenty-two people were killed and 116 injured in a suicide bombing at Manchester Arena. Here's what we know about the attack so far. Attacker 22-year-old Salman Abedi detonated a home-made bomb in the arena's foyer as crowds were leaving a performance by US singer Ariana Grande just after 22:30 BST on 22 May.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Protesters on 42nd Street in front of Grand Central Terminal during the Women's March in New York. Credit... Nicole Craine for The New York Times

* Hundreds of thousands of women gathered in Washington on Saturday in a kind of counterinauguration after President Trump took office on Friday. A range of speakers and performers cutting across generational lines rallied near the Capitol before marchers made their way toward the White House.

* They were joined by crowds in cities across the country: In Chicago, the size of a rally so quickly outgrew early estimates that the march that was to follow was canceled for safety. In Manhattan, Fifth Avenue became a river of pink hats, while in downtown Los Angeles, even before the gathering crowd stretched itself out to march, it was more than a quarter mile deep on several streets.

* Begun as a Facebook post just after the election, the march is the start of what organizers hope could be a sustained campaign of protest in a polarized America, unifying demonstrators around issues like reproductive rights, immigration and civil rights. The movement has also encountered divisions.

Image

(Or watch video of the whole event.)

* The singer and actress Janelle Monae highlighted the issue of police violence, leading the crowd in a chant of "Sandra Bland! Say her name!", a reference to the high-profile case where a black woman died in police custody in Texas after being arrested in 2015.

She then brought the microphone to each of the women in "Mothers of the Movement" who had joined her onstage. One by one, they joined in the chant, each inserting the name of her child who had died at the hands of the police.

* The actress Ashley Judd delivered an uninhibited speech that ended with her referencing how Mr. Trump bragged, in a 2005 recording, that he could use his celebrity status to force himself on women, even groping their private parts.

They "ain't for grabbing," she said. "They are for birthing new generations of filthy, vulgar, nasty, proud, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, you name it, for new generations of nasty women."

* Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon of the 1960s and 1970s, told the women in the group to get to know one another more personally.

"Make sure you introduce yourselves to each other and decide what we're going to do tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow," she said. "We're never turning back!"

* "It's been a heart-rending time to be both a woman and an immigrant in this country," said the actress and activist America Ferrera."But the president is not America. His cabinet is not America. Congress is not America. We are America! And we are here to stay."

* After getting to the crowd to repeat a number to call Congress, the filmmaker Michael Moore urged people to run for office:

"This is not the time for shy people! Shy people, you have two hours to get over it."

* The actress Scarlett Johansson told a story about how she had visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in New York City after starting her acting career, and how a doctor there had treated her with compassion, "no judgment, no questions asked."

"I feel that in the face of this current political climate, it is vital that we all make it our mission to get really, really personal," she said.

"President Trump, I did not vote for you," she continued. "I want to be able to support you. But first I ask that you support me. Support my sister. Support my mother. Support my best friend and all of our girlfriends."

Otherwise, Ms. Johansson said, her own daughter, "may potentially not have the right to make choices for her body and her future that your daughter Ivanka has been privileged to have."
_____

Many participants believed that Mr. Trump expressed misogynistic views during the presidential campaign, with remarks about Megyn Kelly, Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton. After the 2005 recording surfaced, several women came forward to accuse Mr. Trump of inappropriate sexual conduct. He dismissed the recording as "locker room banter" and assailed his accusers.

In a sly allusion to the crude remarks Mr. Trump made in the recording, many marchers, men and women alike, wore pink "pussyhats," complete with cat ears. The hats are described on pussyhatproject.com as a way to "make a unique collective visual statement which will help activists be better heard."
_____
Just after 10 a.m., Mr. Trump and his family headed in the opposite direction of the march in Washington for the National Prayer Service, an inaugural tradition, at the National Cathedral. When he spoke at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., in the midafternoon, he told his audience that they were his "No. 1 stop" on his first full day in office, because they were "really special amazing people."

He also ruminated about how big the attendance had been at his inaugural speech, but he did not mention the large crowds of the women's march, where demonstrators were challenging his administration on a number of policies, or even that the march was taking place as he was speaking.
_____
Mrs. Clinton was not expected to attend the march in Washington, The Times reported on Friday, but her Twitter account sent a midmorning note anyway.

_____
In a speech in Boston, Ms. Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, said fundamental freedoms, like abortion rights and gay marriage, could be at stake under Mr. Trump's Supreme Court.

"We can whimper, we can whine or we can fight back," she said, as demonstrators in pink hats waved American flags. "Me, I'm here to fight back."

"We believe in science," Ms. Warren said, adding, "we know that climate change is real." A police officer patrolling the rally pumped his fists in agreement.

"We also believe that immigration makes this country a stronger country," Ms. Warren said. "We will not build a stupid wall and we will not tear millions of families apart."

"You know, I could do this all day," she added, to laughs and cheers. "But we gotta march."
Jess Bidgood _____

Notable Signs: "Bend toward justice," evokeing the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I'm ready to march again," said Mr. Lewis, a Democratic representative of Georgia, who chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s. "I've come here to say to you: Don't let anybody, anybody, turn you around."

Citing the demonstrations across the country, Mr. Lewis urged marchers, who flowed onto the street running near the Center for Civil and Human Rights, to "use this unity to organize" future political efforts.

"The next election, we must get out and vote like we never, ever voted before," said Mr. Lewis, who was embroiled in a public clash with Mr. Trump recently.
Alan Blinder _____
The crowds appeared to be huge in most places, with marchers in Washington, New York City and Chicago seeming to stretch to the horizons. Police departments, at times, decline to provide crowd estimates, and crowds are notoriously hard to estimate, even with a good satellite image. But some official and unofficial estimates have given a sense of the turnout.

Attendance in New York City was more than 400,000, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio's office. The St. Paul police issued an official crowd count of 50,000 to 60,000 people. Attendance in Boston was 175,000, according to Nicole Caravella, a spokeswoman for Mayor Martin J. Walsh. The Atlanta Police Department estimated about 60,000 people attended a rally there. The Department of Public Safety in Phoenix estimated that some 20,000 marched, while in Key West, Fla., a town of 25,000, police said more than 2,000 people marched.

Organizers in Chicago estimated the crowd there at 250,000, the Chicago Tribune said. The Office of Emergency Management and Communications there said late on Saturday morning that Grant Park, the sprawling area where the rally-goers had gathered, had been filled to capacity. Though the official march was canceled, many still chose to walk through downtown holding protest signs.

Although the mayor's office in Washington and organizers declined to provide an estimate of the size of the flagship march, The Associated Press reported that the District of Columbia's homeland security director, Christopher Geldart, said it was safe to say the crowd at the march there was more than the 500,000 that organizers told city officials to expect.

"The crowd was so heavy, we didn't know which way to go," said Sabitha Pillai-Friedman, a psychotherapist who traveled to Washington from Philadelphia with her 17-year-old child, Sanji, and a friend, Pallavi Sreedhar. "We were squeezed, touching."

(March organizers offered a worldwide tally for the 673 "sister" marches, but when asked, could not provide an explanation of how the tally had been calculated.)
_____
Overheard Chant: "Yes we can" as people walked past the White House.

As the sun set downtown, protesters made their way to the White House and assembled in small groups in a park just across from the building's entrance. There in an area surrounded by temporary gates, people walked single file through one open entrance and one by one laid protest signs across gates set up for inauguration several hundred feet away from the White House.

While the temporary gates made walking up to the building impossible, people stood shaking their heads in frustration.

Fontella Garraway, a 50-year-old retired Army veteran who drove three and half hours from her home in Rocky Mount, N.C., sat on a bench staring at the White House with a pin that read "girl power."

"Even looking at the White House, it's like I hope he's looking out here at us," she said of Mr. Trump. "I hope it's penetrating to him that we mean business and we are serious."

Moments later she lay a handwritten sign that read "Love trumps hate; Hear our voice," on the a fence facing the White House.

"That's his inauguration gift," she said.
Yamiche Alcindor _____

Notable Chant: "Tell me what America looks like! This is what America looks like."

Notable Sash: "65,855,610 votes for a woman," worn by Sara Powell, 61, of Phoenix, and nine of her friends.

Overheard: "My arms are tired. This is a good workout," said Rima Borgogni, 50, owner of a Pilates studio in Sedona, Ariz., after holding a sign throughout the mile-long march.

Ellen Ferreira and her friends felt as if they were fighting for some of the same things they used to. They are mostly retired and many of them are veterans of past protests, including the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

"For our right to choose," said Piya Jacob, 70, a retired elementary school principal.

"For equality," said Mary Helsaple, 67, an artist.

"For healing justice," said Gretchen Vorbeck, 72, who runs a nonprofit that buys grocery gift cards for public schoolteachers.

Carol Decker, 70, a retired magazine publisher, jumped in and said, "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore."

Fernanda Santos _____

Notable Chants: "We are the popular vote!"

Notable Shirt: A blue shirt with "Make Sexism Wrong Again" in the same style as "Make America Great Again" campaign shirts.

Just off 15th street, a block north of the parade's official end point, a large flatbed float with big "TRUMP" letters arched along the back parked itself in the middle of the street, drawing the ire of the thousands of marchers, who berated the float with chants of "Shame!" and "We are the popular vote!"

Police officers formed a barricade around the float with more than a half-dozen sidecar motorcycles. The six or so men and one woman on the float all took pictures of the protesters.

Yet some of those who chanted to chase the float away weren't surprised at its appearance at their march.

"I mean the inauguration was yesterday," said Chrissy Fiore, 39, of Washington, though she said it was "crazy that they made it down here and that now they're getting police escorted out."

Officers wouldn't let reporters approach those on the float or those driving it, but a magnet on the side said "Trump Unity Bridge."

As the float headed east to move away from the parade, Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. of Milwaukee County, a Trump supporter, was seen walking along the sidewalk, taking in the scene but remaining silent. He did not respond to a reporter's question about his opinion of the march or protest.

Chant: "Don't take away our ACA" and "Who's the boss? We are!"

Notable Signs: "Show us your taxes;" "you can't comb over sexism;" "1459 days;" and "build a bridge not a wall."

Overheard: One woman speaking at the rally told the story of having an abortion when she was young, making the minimum wage and could not support a child. She said she was fighting for equal pay "not just for white women."

At the rally in Mr. Trump's hometown near Trump World Tower, elected officials and celebrities assailed the president. Signs in the crowd mocked his bouffant hair and the size of his hands. The actress Whoopi Goldberg said it would be the first of many protests against the president.

"This is how people ended the war in Vietnam," Ms. Goldberg told the cheering crowd.

Grace Huezo, 20, a student at Hunter College, marched with her twin sister holding a "Nasty Woman" sign. She said she was there to defend women's rights after she was appalled by Mr. Trump's comments about grabbing women.

"We're here saying, no, people do not have permission to grab women without our permission," she said.

She said she was buoyed by the huge turnout and the camaraderie.

"I'm hopeful to see so many people that are not giving up and they're keeping their spirit," she said. "We're all just going to stick together over the next four years."
Emma G. Fitzsimmons _____
Popular chant: "March! March! March!"

Notable signs: "I won't stop til it rains glass;" "You can't comb over misogyny" (accompanied by a drawing of Mr. Trump's hair); "Flunk the Electoral College."

Overheard: "I got to bring my high school punk rock out," said Emily Hastings, 39, a woman from Denver wearing a black "eat the rich" T-shirt and carrying a "Don't tread on women" sign. "Punk rock is all about resistance."

The march began in a park at the center of the city with a group singing "You've got a friend." Marchers blanketed the park nestled between the gold-domed state capitol and city hall, hauling strollers, wearing pink hats and often hugging and kissing.
Julie Turkewitz _____
Notable Sign: "Make America Compassionate Again," and "I Love You"

Thousands of demonstrators gathered on a drizzly morning clad in rain boots, ponchos and pink knit "pussyhats" to march to the Capitol.

"What Trump has said is so based on exclusion and winning and being right versus taking care of everyone," said Hilary James, 27, a musician from Minneapolis. "Even if he doesn't listen to us, I feel it's important to not sit back."
Christina Capecchi

_____
Notable Sign: Make America Think Again

Gloria Cole, 66, had turned the protest into a family affair, traveling here with her wife, her daughter, her daughter's boyfriend, and her brother and sister-in-law.

"I drew a line, it's like, I'm an old woman - I'm not that old, I'm 66 - I have to stand up for equal rights for everyone, for human rights," Ms. Cole said. "We're here, and we're not going away."

Aili Shaw, 14, held a white sign that read, "Our arms are tired from holding these signs since the 1920s."

Ms. Shaw had traveled here, by train and car, with friends from her home in Coventry, R.I.

"Women don't have the rights they should," she said.
Jess Bidgood _____
Popular Chant: "Thank You." Women were chanting this to the organizers of the march as they kicked off the day's events.

Notable Clothing: At the corner of C and Third Southwest, many women (and some men) were wearing cat-eared "pussyhats" of all shades of pink. Organizers wanted to knit as many as one million hats for this event.

People were also getting creative with the signs they carry. Alan and Alison Lewis drove in from Astoria with their 20-month-old, Grace.

"You shouldn't have to have a relationship to a woman to stand up for women," Mr. Lewis said. "Equality and justice is enough of a reason to be here."
Katie Rogers _____
Who She Is: Jessica Coleman, 56, of Stone Mountain, Ga.

Backstory: A black retired teacher who used to show her daughter documentaries about black history and march with her daughter and church members during Martin Luther King holiday weekends.

"I wanted them to know you can be a smart, intelligent black person. You don't have to sag your pants and follow certain things that became media culture. I wanted them to know that people marched, bled and died for us to be able to vote and be able to go to college and have certain jobs."

"You can really lose your sense of self if you don't know where you've come from and you don't have a vision of where you want to go."

_____

Who She Is: Amber Coleman-Mortley, 34, of Bethesda, Md., is Ms. Coleman's daughter

Backstory: Works at a nonprofit focused on civic education

"On the evening of election night, after saying, 'Hey, I'm going to vote and I'm going to get my friends to vote,' I sat on the sofa bawling trying to figure out what to say to my daughters the next morning because they went to bed certain that Hillary was going to win."

"Marching is my way of putting my money where my mouth is as far as being an active citizen."

"I want my daughters to have agency and have control over their bodies and feel comfortable in the country that they are in so this is my way of saying, 'Hey everybody, I agree with all the people who are out here for different reasons and we don't agree with what is happening right now and we are taking a stand.'"

_____

Who She Is: Garvey Mortley, 8, of Bethesda, Md., is Ms. Coleman's granddaughter

Backstory: Third grader; was named after Marcus Garvey

"I think it's good to share the moment with them and help protest Donald Trump because we want to stand up for our rights because a long time ago, lots of women could not vote. Now we can vote and protest people and stuff."

"If he affects the world in a bad way - like I have lots of friends from different countries and he could make them all move away ... that makes me mad because all the people from the civil rights movement had a hard time trying to put us together. It's like a puzzle, all these people came together, piece by piece, and now Donald Trump is coming over and just breaking those puzzle pieces."

Video

For Amber Coleman-Mortley, the Women's March on Washington was a family affair. Credit Credit... Ben C. Solomon/The New York Times

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women's March Highlights as Huge Crowds Protest Trump: 'We're Not Going Away' (Published 2017)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hundreds of thousands of women gathered in Washington on Saturday in a kind of counterinauguration after President Trump took office on Friday. A range of speakers and performers cutting across generational lines rallied near the Capitol before marchers made their way toward the White House.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On Sept. 5, Trump announced that he was terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The Obama-era program provides relief from deportation for an estimated 800,000 young immigrants. These immigrants have gone to our schools, they live and work in our communities, they have families, and now they're at an even greater risk of deportation. Congress must act immediately to protect Dreamers.

WHAT IS THE DACA PROGRAM?

DACA provides relief from deportation to certain young immigrants. In 2012, President Obama created the DACA program to grant relief from deportation to individuals who came to the U.S. as children, if they met a number of requirements (like extensive background checks). The Obama Administration recognized that there were millions of undocumented young immigrants who grew up in the U.S., who were essentially American in every sense, except on paper. The program has allowed approximately 800,000 young people the opportunity to live and work lawfully in the U.S. It does not provide a path to citizenship. Check out this short video explaining the program.

DACA is constitutional. Opponents of DACA, including Trump, are falsely claiming that DACA is unconstitutional. But nationally renowned constitutional scholars have weighed in, like in this letter to Trump , arguing that not only is DACA constitutional, but that previous presidents from both parties have used the same process to grant relief from deportation to other immigrants.

WHAT THE END OF THE DACA PROGRAM MEANS

Donald Trump has betrayed our values and unraveled our promise to these young immigrants who grew up calling the United States home. When the program was created back in 2012, the U.S. government asked eligible immigrants to come forward, to volunteer their personal information, undergo a background check, and pay a large fine, in exchange for protection from deportation. Indeed, DACA is a promise of safety by the U.S. government to the 800,000 individuals who have been granted DACA-and now that promise has been broken.

Trump's elimination of DACA is part of his white supremacist agenda. Trump's decision is consistent with his broader, white supremacist agenda. He notably pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on August 25, a man who made his career by violating the constitutional rights of those he was sworn to protect because of the color of their skin. Make no mistake: Trump is systematically attacking people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and anyone else he can "other."

TELL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO PASS A CLEAN DREAM ACT NOW!

There is bipartisan support for the Dream Act in both the Senate and House. And the bill enjoys massive support from the American public. Now that Donald Trump has yanked protection away from immigrant youth, it is now up to Congress to take action. Every day that goes by is a day in which the lives of immigrant youth remain at risk.

Tell your Members of Congress pass a clean Dream Act, meaning a bill that provides relief for Dreamers but that does not include the harmful enforcement provisions that Trump wants.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Trump Continues His Attack on Immigrants-What You Can Do to Defend Dreamers - Indivisible

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One of the most important programs created under President Obama was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program has allowed close to a million DACAmented to live and work in the U.S.-and now Trump is dead set on getting rid of it, and then deporting those who have benefited from it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Trump Lawyer Arranged $130,000 Payment for Adult-Film Star's Silence

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A lawyer for President Donald Trump arranged a $130,000 payment to a former adult-film star a month before the 2016 election as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A gunman opened fire on the crowd at a music festival Oct. 1, 2017, killing at least 58 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
US Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Weather Service

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

A second federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump's attempt to change the military's transgender policy.

Trump's July 2017 directive would have banned all new transgender recruits from enlisting, kicked out transgender people currently serving in the military and prohibited transition-related surgery for service members.

In a ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis, the second federal judge to review the case, said transgender people serving in the military have "demonstrated that they are already suffering harmful consequences" due to Trump's policy.

Garbis said these consequences include "the cancellation and postponements of surgeries, the stigma of being set apart as inherently unfit, facing the prospect of discharge and inability to commission as an officer, the inability to move forward with long-term medical plans, and the threat to their prospects of obtaining long-term assignments."

What did Trump try to do?

In July, Trump sought to ban transgender personnel from the military. In a string of tweets, he wrote:

"After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you."

Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now

In August, he signed a presidential memo that followed through on his tweets: it prohibited transgender people from enlisting in the military, and stopped all funds going toward paying for gender transition-related surgery.
What have the courts said?
On August 9, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) filed a motion for preliminary injunction, seeking an immediate halt to Trump's order, which would ban thousands of transgender people who are currently serving in the U.S. military. The judge approved that motion, but denied a request to block the ban on government funds for gender reassignment surgery. The effect of the court's order in the case, Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump, was to revert to the status quo with regard to transgender people serving in the military.

"This is a complete victory for our plaintiffs and all transgender service members, who are now once again able to serve on equal terms and without the threat of being discharged," NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter said in a statement. "We are grateful to the court for issuing such a clear, powerful decision recognizing that there is no legitimate reason for treating qualified transgender service members differently than others."

In October, a federal court blocked Trump's ruling, saying the directive could not be enforced while the case works its way through the court. The judge changed the policy back to what it was before June 2016 while it was being reviewed.

Tuesday's ruling does even more: it also prevents the Trump administration from denying funding for sex-reassignment surgeries after the order takes effect. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the ACLU of Maryland and six transgender members of the Armed Forces: Petty Officer First Class Brock Stone, Senior Airman John Doe, Airman First Class Seven Ero George, Petty Officer First Class Teagan Gilbert, Staff Sergeant Kate Cole and Technical Sergeant Tommie Parker.

"Today is a victory for transgender service members across the country," said Joshua Block, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's LGBT & HIV Project, in a statement. "We're pleased that the courts have stepped in to ensure that trans service members are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."

The bottom line: Transgender members of the military can still serve, can still gain access to health care and can still enlist in the military.
What's next?
Neither court injunction constitutes a final decision in the case. The plaintiffs are arranging a case-planning conference on December 15, where they will schedule further proceedings.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What's going on with Trump's transgender military ban?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A second federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump's attempt to change the military's transgender policy. Trump's July 2017 directive would have banned all new transgender recruits from enlisting, kicked out transgender people currently serving in the military and prohibited transition-related surgery for service members. In a ruling on Tuesday, U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sheriffs Had Received About 20 Calls Regarding Shooting Suspect

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At least 17 people were killed when Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.