Nigerian president says he’s alive, not impostor

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s president took the extraordinary step of denying rumors that he died and was replaced by a body double, telling the country that he is alive and well.

“It is the real me I assure you,” President Muhammadu Buhari said Sunday to a group of Nigerians during a visit to Poland, where he is attending the United Nations Climate Conference.

“A lot of people hoped that I died during my ill health,” Buhari said. “I am still going strong.”

The 75-year-old, who was elected in 2015 and will run for his second term in February, has been in ill health throughout his presidency. But in the video of his remarks posted to Twitter by his personal assistant, he joked as he dismissed the rumors, to laughter and head-shaking applause by some government officials after a Nigerian posed a question about his identity.

The government has been tight-lipped about Buhari’s health throughout his presidency.

Rumors of his death started in 2017, when Buhari spent seven weeks in London for medical treatment. They abated when he returned to Nigeria, but returned in full force last month, stoked by prominent opposition leaders and separatists.

Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra, said that a Sudanese lookalike, named Jubril, had taken Buhari’s place as a body double. His claims were shared widely online, often accompanied by videos that appeared to portray a dead Buhari lying in a London hospital.

This is not the first time that Nigerians have speculated about a president’s mortality. State secrecy around former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s ill health fostered similar rumors before Yar’Adua died in office in 2010.

As Nigeria prepares for the upcoming elections, the opposition said the president’s health renders him unfit to continue his tenure. Some have questioned his ability to contain insurgent groups and Islamic extremists, which the president recently said had started using drones.

In the 2015 elections, Buhari made the defeat of Boko Haram a major goal for his presidency. But extremists continue to carry out deadly suicide bombings and abductions in the northeast and wider Lake Chad region.

Deadly attacks against the Nigerian military are on the rise. Thirty-nine Nigerian soldiers were killed and another 43 were wounded in November, according to the presidency.

In late November, Buhari pivoted from repeated claims from his government that Boko Haram had been “crushed,” instead urging the military to “rise to the challenge.”

The Islamic State also claimed it has “full control” of Arege, a town near Lake Chad, after Nigerian soldiers fled their barracks.

The group also posted a statement Monday on the main IS website claiming that, after two days of attacks against the barracks, many soldiers were killed and wounded.

The Nigerian military has not responded to the claims.

Buhari said Monday at the U.N. Climate Change conference in Poland that no country can fight climate change on its own and called for international support to save the receding Lake Chad and ensure its safety from Boko Haram fighters.

“Nigeria believes in joint and cooperative effort to tackle the problem,” Buhari said, noting that climate change effects are felt more acutely in vulnerable communities. “We urge that effort to address the challenges of climate change be pursued within multilateral frame work.”

He said parameters should be put in place to monitor financial flows from developed countries to developing economies.

Lake Chad, one of the world’s largest freshwater lakes, has shrunk by 95 percent in more than 50 years, the government says. Buhari has said that has led to massive social and economic loss for millions of families, and has linked it to violence by Boko Haram insurgents.

He called on the international community to support a water transfer from the Congo Basin, saying it would benefit of over 40 million people that depend on the Lake Chad for their livelihood and to guarantee future security of the region.

 

Climate talks begin under new political realities

TNS — Three years after forging the Paris climate agreement, world leaders are meeting again to decide how to turn emissions-cutting pledges into action.

But as talks begin this week in Katowice, Poland, a clash between climate science and global politics threatens the ability of nearly 200 countries to come together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time scientists are issuing increasingly dire warnings of intensifying climate change and the perils of inaction, President Donald Trump and other world leaders are pursuing nationalist and fossil-fuel friendly policies that make global warming worse.

“It’s a strange moment we’re in, where the science and people’s everyday experience are showing how important this problem is, and yet the politics, not just in the U.S. but around the world, are undermining international efforts,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Research Program at Stanford University.

The dynamic is not just evident in the actions of Trump, who has attacked climate science and vowed to pull out of the Paris agreement as part of his “America first” agenda. Leaders from other countries that previously supported the agreement appear also to be backing off their commitments.

“It will be interesting to see how this local distaste for multilateralism plays against a growing understanding of the urgency of the problem,” said Samantha Gross, an energy and climate expert at the Brookings Institution.

The 2015 Paris agreement was a breakthrough, with nations across the world for the first time committing to keep global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5 degrees. Those international commitments to cut planet-warming emissions were a vital first step toward avoiding the most devastating effects of climate change, but the deal left many details to be firmed up later.

The negotiations beginning this week at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP24, focus on those technical matters, including the rules under which countries track their greenhouse gas emissions and report their progress to the rest of the world.

Writing the rules is a central mission of the talks “that’s essentially needed to turn Paris from an agreement on paper into a working, operational and effective regime,” said Todd Stern, who led the U.S. effort to negotiate the agreement under President Barack Obama and is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Experts following the conference said its importance has grown in light of the geopolitical threats to the Paris agreement and the spate of recent reports warning that time is running out.

The planet has already warmed by about 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times as a result of the human-caused buildup of greenhouse gases, and scientists say we are already experiencing the consequences in the form of rising sea levels, more intense hurricanes and wildfires and other problems.

An October report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that some of the most devastating effects of climate change will hit harder and sooner than previously expected and could reach a tipping point within 12 years without “far-reaching and unprecedented changes.” A U.N. report released last week found that few nations are on track to meet the Paris targets, which themselves fall significantly short of achieving the emissions cuts needed to keep warming within levels tolerable to humanity. Without drastic large-scale action, the assessment found, the planet is likely to warm 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

Although the Trump administration still intends to withdraw from the Paris agreement as soon as it’s eligible to in 2020, it is sending a delegation to participate in the COP24 negotiations “to ensure a level playing field that benefits and protects U.S. interests,” the State Department said in a statement.

Trump’s disavowal of the Paris Agreement, coupled with the ongoing trade dispute with China _ the most important other party in the negotiations _ weakens the U.S. position going into the conference, Wara said. Another obstacle, he said, is the administration’s push to undo regulations to fight climate change while at the same time expressing unwillingness to help poor countries reduce their emissions.

“That’s a very toxic message for the U.S. to bring to this meeting, but I suspect it is what we’ll be articulating as our viewpoint,” Wara said. Although it’s possible that countries will emerge from the two-week conference with a meaningful agreement that advances the Paris deal, Wara said, “the worst case would be that no one agrees on anything and we have a real breakdown in the conversation.”

Trump recently dismissed the dire conclusions of a report by 13 federal agencies in his administration that climate change is causing widespread damage to the nation’s environment, health and economy that will intensify over the century without swift action. The latest installment of the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment found that global warming, if left unchecked, will shrink the economy by hundreds of billions of dollars annually by the end of the century.

“I don’t believe it,” Trump said in response, without offering evidence to counter the findings of hundreds of leading climate scientists.

 

 

Trump’s comments continued a push by his administration to attack the scientific consensus on climate change while moving to allow more pollution from cars, trucks and coal-fired power plants by unraveling Obama administration environmental regulations.

Some are optimistic, nonetheless, that the new round of climate talks can bring meaningful progress.

Helen Mountford, vice president for climate and economics at World Resources Institute, a Washington-based research organization, said one other motivating factor could be increased pressure from those outside of government in business and finance who see economic opportunities in transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

“On the ground, there’s good reasons to believe countries can and should step up action,” she said, “because we’re starting to see markets shift and technologies become cheaper.”

Kansas saw record vote for non-presidential election

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — More than 1 million Kansas residents voted in the state’s general election earlier this month to set a record for a non-presidential year.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Friday that the voter turnout of nearly 58 percent was “extraordinary.” In non-presidential years over the past two decades, turnout in the general election had averaged 51 percent.

Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Gov. Jeff Colyer’s chief attorney met briefly to certify results compiled for the Nov. 6 election by the state’s 105 counties.

Kobach’s office reported that 1,061,029 people cast ballots, with a record 1,841,776 registered voters. In 2014, voters cast 887,023 ballots, or 20 percent fewer.

The secretary of state’s office also said 39 percent of the ballots this year were cast in advance.

Emily Lewis

Emily M. (Boyd) Lewis, 82, passed away on Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 at Kansas Christian Home in Newton. She was born at home in Latham, to Alvin Floyd Hildibrand and Vivian (Edwards) Hildibrand. She was the second of nine children and grew up around the Latham, area until after graduating from Latham High School. She then moved to Iola to help her grandmother on the farm when her grandfather became ill.

Emily worked as a nurse aid/central supply technician for the biggest part of her employment years. She was a great cook and loved to make a variety of different dishes. Pinterest didn’t exist back then, so she relied on her “Betty Crocker” cookbook for new recipes. She made chicken and noodles totally from scratch, starting with the rolled-out dough on the kitchen cabinets drying out and cutting into long thin strips and “mock filet mignon,” which was really a hamburger patty wrapped with bacon. She was a great bread maker, making fancy Candy Cane bread and braided breads with candied fruit. However, she left the cakes for her daughter(s) or the local baker.

Emily is survived by her children, Terisa (Robert) Garrison of Keenesburg, Colo., Phillip Boyd of Derby, Kathy (Jeff) Trimble of Valley Center, Steven Boyd of Wichita, and Yvette (Bryant) Tallant of Iola; five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. She is also survived by sister, Rojean Mays of Wichita, and brother, Alvin Floyd Hildibrand Jr. of Norwich. She was preceded in death by her parents Alvin Floyd and Vivian Hildibrand; sisters, Goldie Lee Sutton, Roberta Rucker, Linda Zimmerman, Joyce Ann McGee; brothers, Michael and Neil. She is also preceded in death by husband, Glen Lewis, and son-in-law, Gordon Robb.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Valley Center Christian Church, 1801 E. Fifth St., Valley Center. Private burial will be held at a later date.

Dick Bird

James Richard (Dick) Bird, 68, Yates Center, died Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018, at Olathe Hospice.

He was born on Dec. 15, 1949, in Clifton Springs, N.Y., to Harold J. Bird and Doris A. (Shantz) Bird.  He served in the United States Air Force during Vietnam.

Dick is survived by his wife, Kathy, of the home; three step-children, Rhonda, Angela, and Vincent; and numerous other relatives.

Dick’s wishes were to be cremated. A celebration of life service will be held at a later date.

Constance Wright

Constance Lanelle Wright, 77, died Nov. 26, 2018, at North Richland Hills, Texas.

Graveside service will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Le Roy Cemetery.

Van Arsdale Funeral Home of LeRoy is in charge of arrangements.

 

One dead as storms pummel central U.S.

TAYLORVILLE, Ill. (AP) — Residents in central Illinois on Sunday assessed the damage after rare December tornadoes, including one the day before that was a half-mile-wide, ripped roofs off homes, downed power lines and injured at least 20 people.

The severe weather in Illinois was part of a line of thunderstorms that raked areas of the central U.S. late Friday and into Saturday, killing one person in Missouri. The National Weather Service confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma.

At least three tornadoes were confirmed in northwest and southwest Arkansas, which largely caused property and structural damage. No injuries or fatalities were reported.

Peak months for tornadoes in much of the Midwest are April and June, according to the weather service. But at least 12 tornadoes were reported in Illinois on Saturday, including one in Taylorville which has been confirmed. If the majority are confirmed, that would be the most tornadoes in Illinois in a December storm since Dec. 18-19, 1957, when there were 21.

The weather service sent crews Sunday to survey the hardest-hit areas in Illinois, which included Taylorville, 25 miles southeast of Springfield.

Photographs and video from Taylorville showed several houses flattened, with residents wading into debris to salvage what they could. Some homes remained standing but with gaping holes in the roofs or with no roofs at all.

The tornado was on the ground for around 10 miles before it thundered through Taylorville, and the weather service was able to warn residents of its arrival 41 minutes before it actually struck, Chris Miller, a meteorologist at the service’s Lincoln office, said in a phone interview Sunday. That advanced warning gave people critical time to take cover and may have saved lives.

Assistant Fire Chief Andy Goodall, speaking to reporters Saturday night shortly after the storm pounded the city of 11,000, said at least 100 homes had major damage, including his own, Springfield’s State Journal-Register reported.

A Taylorville Memorial Hospital spokesman said 21 people, from age 9 to 97, arrived for treatment Saturday. Most were released within hours. Miller said three people remained hospitalized as of Sunday afternoon.

Miller said preliminary estimates are that the Taylorville tornado may have been an EF2, which indicates wind speeds as high as 135 mph. It could take several more days to know for sure.

The weather service said Sunday that a strong tornado that developed from severe thunderstorms Friday night touched down in Van Buren, Ark. It was rated an EF2. About 10 minutes later, a second weaker tornado was confirmed less than 10 miles away near the town of Rudy, Ark.

Damage surveys for the two tornadoes are ongoing but officials said dozens of homes were damaged.

Early Saturday morning a third tornado with estimated peak winds of 107 mph traveled about 8.5 miles through Spring Hill in southwest Arkansas. Its path was intermittent and mostly caused damage to trees and to some structures.

Missouri first to adopt fairness doctrine

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The votes won’t be cast for another four years, yet Democrats already appear likely to gain seats in Missouri’s Republican-dominated Legislature in 2022.

The reason: a one-of-its kind redistricting initiative approved by voters in the recent midterm elections.

Missouri’s initiative marks a new frontier in a growing movement against partisan gerrymandering that has now notched ballot-box victories in eight states over the past decade.

Other states have created independent commissions and required bipartisan votes to redraw legislative and congressional districts. Missouri will be the first to rely on a new mathematical formula to try to engineer “partisan fairness” and “competitiveness” in its state legislative districts; the Legislature will continue drawing the state’s congressional districts.

An Associated Press analysis of the new Missouri formula shows it has the potential to end the Republicans’ supermajorities in the state House and state Senate and move the chambers closer to the more even partisan division that is often reflected in statewide races. But the size of the likely Democratic gains remains uncertain, partly because the formula has never been put to a test.

“Missouri’s engaged in an experiment,” said Sam Wang, director of the Princeton University Gerrymandering Project, which uses math to measure partisan advantages in redistricting.

“Democrats have a fighting chance in a way that they didn’t before,” Wang added. But “a lot of it depends on what they do with it.”

After the 2010 census, Republicans nationwide controlled more state legislatures and governor’s offices than Democrats. They used that power to draw legislative and congressional districts that benefited the GOP.

Since then, advocates have been trying to reform the system to eliminate or greatly reduce partisan gerrymandering, which has been used by both parties over the years to draw political boundaries in ways that give the dominant party a disproportionate hold on power. They have succeeded in making the process less partisan in a number of states, mostly through ballot initiatives approved by voters.

Nov. 6 was the latest example of the trend, when voters in Colorado, Michigan and Utah joined Missouri in approving new redistricting systems.

All states must redraw their congressional and state legislative districts after the 2020 census. Those new maps generally will kick in for the elections two years later. Although the criteria vary by state, most require districts to contain similar populations, keep communities together when possible and give minorities a chance to elect candidates of their choice.

The constitutional amendment approved by Missouri voters in November keeps those criteria. But it also requires a new nonpartisan state demographer to base state House and Senate districts on the votes cast in the previous three elections for president, governor and U.S. senator — races that are decided by voters statewide and are not affected by gerrymandering.

The districts must come as close as practical to achieving “partisan fairness” as measured by a formula called “the efficiency gap.”

That formula was created earlier this decade by Eric McGhee, a researcher at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, and University of Chicago law professor Nick Stephanopoulos. It compares the statewide share of the vote a party receives with the statewide percentage of seats it wins, taking into account a common political expectation: For each 1 percentage point gain in its statewide vote share, a party normally increases its seat share by 2 percentage points.

Although the efficiency gap has been cited in court challenges to politically gerrymandered districts in Wisconsin and elsewhere, no other state has made it a legally required test for redistricting.

California, which adopted an independent redistricting commission for the 2010 census, prohibited political favoritism in drawing districts but included no test to determine if that occurs. Since then, Democratic dominance has increased in both the state’s congressional delegation and its state legislative chambers.

McGhee, who was not involved in Missouri’s initiative, said the formula will constrain what mapmakers can do to inflate partisan majorities.

Missouri’s current state Senate districts were adopted by a bipartisan commission after the 2010 census. Its House districts were drawn by a judicial panel after a bipartisan commission failed to agree on a plan.

In the November elections, Republican candidates received an average of 57 percent of the two-party vote across Missouri’s 163 House districts, yet Republicans won 71 percent of the seats. That gave them a 116-47 majority over Democrats.

That equates to an 8 percent efficiency gap favoring Republicans — or an additional 13 GOP seats beyond what would be expected from the total votes, according to an AP analysis.

The Republican majorities in Missouri’s two legislative chambers remained unchanged after this year’s elections despite the fact Democrats fielded their highest number of candidates since 2002.

Stronger Republican fundraising and messaging make it difficult for Democrats to win legislative races in parts of Missouri, said Rep. Peter Merideth, who led the Democrats’ House Victory Committee.

But “certainly, the way that they’ve drawn the districts is part of it,” he added.

Like many states, Missouri’s urban centers of St. Louis and Kansas City have high concentrations of Democratic voters while the rural areas are overwhelmingly Republican. That results in a lot of lopsided state legislative races, even though statewide races often are highly competitive.

By requiring legislative districts to be based on the votes for top statewide races, Democrats are likely to gain influence. The new redistricting formula takes into account nine statewide elections from 2012 to 2020. In the seven that already have been held, Republicans received 51 percent of the vote to Democrats’ 49 percent.

To achieve partisan fairness, the new legislative maps would have to be drawn so Democrats would be projected to win about 48 percent of the seats. That means some urban Democratic voters likely would have to be mixed together with rural Republican voters in elongated districts that could look more gerrymandered than the current ones.

But it still might not be possible to obtain perfect partisan fairness. Democrats topped out at around 44 percent of the House seats in a simulated map prepared for the group Missourians First, which opposed the redistricting ballot measure.

“Because rural Missouri is so Republican, you actually cannot draw to that standard” in the constitutional amendment, said Scott Dieckhaus, a Republican consultant who managed the Missourians First campaign. “So you basically just draw as many competitive seats as you can.”

Even then, Democrats could fall short of projected gains. That’s because the formula, by including the results of Democratic victories in the governor’s and U.S. Senate races in 2012, may understate the Republican shift that has occurred in the state since then.

“It may look like on paper you’ve suddenly created a plan that’s only going to elect 55 percent Republicans or something, but in reality, it will produce as many Republicans as the existing plan,” McGhee said.

Democratic consultant Sean Nicholson, who directed the Clean Missouri campaign for the ballot measure, said he believes Democrats could gain seats under the plan but are unlikely to win control of either chamber in the immediate future.

“The goal is to have a Legislature that more closely matches what voters are saying they want in these statewide races,” Nicholson said.

‘F Troop’ star dies at 85

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Ken Berry, an actor and dancer who played the affable and clumsy Capt. Wilton Parmenter in the 1960s sitcom “F Troop,” has died. He was 85.

Berry died Saturday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, hospital spokeswoman Patricia Aidem confirmed. The cause of death was not provided by Berry’s family.

Berry also starred in “Mayberry R.F.D.,” a spin-off of “The Andy Griffith Show,”  and “Mama’s Family.”

Berry’s co-star in “F Troop,” Larry Storch, said in a Facebook post that his friend’s passing was “devastating.”

“We are at a true loss for words,” the post read. “Ken, we hope you know how much you were loved. Goodnight Captain. We miss you already.”

Bush confronted tyranny, while showing compassion’s power

Upon hearing that George H.W. Bush died, our first thought turned not to his time in the Oval Office but to his daughter Robin. The second child and the elder daughter of George and Barbara Bush, Pauline Robinson Bush died of leukemia before her fourth birthday in 1953. George Bush would later wonder if, when he met her again in heaven, she would be a child or an adult.

If that was part of the mystery that has now been revealed to him, we can know with certainty that it was a reunion filled with a deep and abiding joy.

Referred to as “the quiet man” in a recent book of that title by his one-time chief of staff John H. Sununu, Bush was a leader the country turned to again and again in crisis. He led the Republican National Committee during the collapse of Richard Nixon’s presidency. He took the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency when it was at a low ebb. And he took up the reins as vice president in the Reagan administration at a time when the United States was in retreat abroad and retrenching economically at home.

As president, he saw in the collapse of the Soviet Union a rare opportunity to enable the spread of human liberty on a mass scale. When others might have wished him to go on a world victory tour celebrating the collapse of the evil empire, President Bush refused to gloat.

Instead, through diplomacy, by mentoring officials washing out of power in the former Soviet bloc, and through American foreign policy, he shepherded in a new world. In what was a stunning transition away from tyranny, much of Eastern Europe left communism on the ash heap of history, East and West Germany were peacefully reunited, and even Russia gained the opportunity to turn toward democracy.

None of that was foreordained. And all of it continues to rebound to the benefit of the United States in the grand struggle of liberty vs. tyranny. Consider that a decade after George H.W. Bush left office, Russia had yet to fully turn back toward the darkest impulses of its past and was therefore willing to actively help the United States enter Afghanistan so that our armed forces could topple the Taliban and hunt down al-Qaeda’s leaders. Consider too that as we now must confront Russian aggression abroad, we have a host of new Eastern European allies within NATO and within the European Union.

The example of leadership that Bush left is a mix of personal character, compassion and measured strength.

The future president — after becoming the American ambassador to China — had a famous exchange with Henry Kissinger, who was then at the height of his power and influence. Kissinger told Bush that personal diplomacy was inconsequential. “It doesn’t matter if they like you or not,” he said. Bush rejected the notion that nations made decisions based only on realpolitik calculations, and he made building personal relationships a hallmark of his tenure as ambassador and a mark of his leadership.

We can see that throughout his life Bush used personal diplomacy to reshape the arc of history. Internationally, historians will record the role the 41st president personally played in reshaping Europe. Historians will also record the influence he commanded in assembling an overwhelming coalition to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

At home, his influence extended to stabilizing federal finances and reviving a flagging economy that dipped into recession after a long boom in the 1980s. He pushed for and signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, legislation that helped reshape a cultural attitude toward people with disabilities. And he recognized the important role that private compassion plays in a free society, where private charitable endeavors can often marshal more resources more quickly and be more effective than public efforts.

What he called “A Thousand Points of Light” were, in fact, the private armies of compassion that have a long history in America, but decades into the federal War on Poverty were at risk of being discounted. His work helped steer corporate and private philanthropic efforts toward a wide range of social ills. And his sense of service extended past his time in the White House — including in recent decades raising aid for Haiti and other nations after natural disasters — and extended to inculcating an ethos of service in his family. He would see two of his sons, George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, elected governors of major states and one of his sons win two terms as president of the United States.

What George H.W. Bush left us was an example that in leadership, character and compassion can move the world. He understood the power of unlocking human creativity and the importance of improving the lives of others.

He also knew how to live life to its fullest. Late in life, he took to celebrating his birthday by going parachuting. Throughout much of his life he loved to take his speedboat off the coast of Maine near his home in Kennebunkport. More than one of his guests were a little unnerved at the speed at which he would roar along the coast.

Both are small examples of one of the bigger themes of his life not fully explored by historians. Bush was always willing to jump off and try something new. Whether it was leaving New England behind to make his way in West Texas or running for political office, embracing new policy ideas or believing that meaningful change was possible, George H.W. Bush was a catalyst.

Our parting thought about the 41st president comes to us from historian Jon Meacham. Once when he was approaching 90 years old, Bush was at his home in Kennebunkport when a massive storm rolled in. His chief of staff found him sitting outside watching the ocean as a full gale force wind swirled around him. Why was he out in the mix? The former president simply said: “I don’t want to miss anything.”

— The Dallas Morning News