Chris Cornell dead at 52

Lead singer of Soundgarden and Audioslave, Chris Cornell, was found dead on Wednesday night after performing in Detroit. The cause of his death has been proclaimed a suicide by hanging but a full autopsy report has not been completed yet. A family friend called 911 around midnight on Thursday after they went to check on Cornell and found the musician “unresponsive” on the bathroom floor at MGM Grand hotel, said Detroit police spokesman Michael Woody. Emergency medical personnel arrived and Cornell was soon pronounced dead at the scene, Woody stated. Cornell was in Detroit performing with Soundgarden on a US tour that kicked off just last month. His death was “sudden and unexpected,” his representative, Brian Bumbery, said in a statement to CNN.

For more information:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/18/entertainment/chris-cornell-dead/index.html

Sharia court sentences gay men to public lashing

A Sharia court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province sentenced two gay men to public caning on Wednesday. The men, ages 20 and 23, were arrested in March within their community in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province. They were subsequently found guilty of violating Aceh’s strict Islamic laws and both were sentenced to 85 lashes, according to Evendi, the head of Sharia law enforcement in Banda Aceh. The lead judge, Khairil Jamal, said that “the court had proven that the defendants without doubt are legally guilty of committing sodomy.” He also said, “No evidence was found to justify or forgive them. Therefore, they shall be punished accordingly.” Neighbors had barged into an apartment with the men and filmed them with camera phones, according to rights groups. The videos were shared widely in local media.

For more information:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/asia/gay-men-caning-indonesia-aceh/index.html

ISIS attack on TV station in Afghanistan

ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack on a television station in eastern Afghanistan that left six people dead. Security forces called to Radio Television Afghanistan in the city of Jalalabad were drawn into a gun battle with the attackers. Two police officers and four employees of the TV station were killed, Atauolah Khogyani, Nangarhar province governor’s spokesman, said in a statement. Four of the five attackers, including one suicide bomber, were also killed. The fifth attacker was arrested. ISIS claimed the attack in a message posted on the Telegram messaging service by the ISIS-affiliated media Amaq. At least 19 people were injured in the attack, including seven who were treated in hospital and released, the provincial health services director, Najibullah Kamawal, said.

For more information:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/asia/afghanistan-jalalabad-attack/index.html

Questions concerning Flynn add to White House turmoil

Controversy swirled around former US national security adviser Michael Flynn on Thursday after one report claimed he told the Trump transition team he was under federal investigation before he started in the role, and another said he opposed a military operation in Syria that Turkey would have opposed while he was secretly in its pay. The emerged as it was announced that former FBI Director Robert Mueller had been appointed as special counsel to oversee the federal investigation into Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election and the possibility of collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign officials. Wednesday’s New York Times report, citing two people familiar with the case, claimed that Flynn told the Trump transition team more than two weeks before the inauguration that he was under federal investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the campaign.

For more information:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/18/politics/flynn-trump-transition-turkey/index.html

Trump’s foreign trip bogged in White House crises

President Donald Trump, joined by first lady Melania Trump, will embark Friday on his first foreign trip, a five country grind where the very issues of credibility and competence exposed by the past week’s chaos will reverberate widely. White House officials originally regarded the international swing as a reset for a beleaguered President and his staff. Instead, the problems stemming from Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director James Comey, his reported disclosure of highly classified information to Russian officials and his alleged urging of Comey to end his investigation into now-fired national security advisor Michael Flynn seem destined to shadow him as he travels abroad for the first time.

For more information:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/trump-foreign-trip-overshadowed/index.html