Friday,  Nov. 15, 2013 • Vol. 16--No. 122 • 29 of 34

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trition and defiance in a series of public appearances.
• He later wore a football jersey to a City Council session, where outraged councilors turned their backs each time he spoke and again called on him to step aside.
• Later, Councilor Karen Stintz said the city has temporarily suspended all school trips to City Hall because staff deemed them unsafe for the children.
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Chemical weapons watchdog meets to discuss destruction of Syria's poison gas stockpile

• THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- The international chemical weapons watchdog was meeting Friday to endorse a plan to destroy Syria's deadly poison gas and nerve agent arsenal, most likely somewhere outside the Mideast country.
• Approval by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons of a destruction plan is a crucial step in the international community's efforts to eliminate President Bashar Assad's stockpile that is believed to include mustard gas and sarin.
• The risky disarmament operation in the midst of a raging civil war started more than a month ago with inspections and the smashing of machinery used to mix chemicals and fill empty munitions, thereby ending the regime's capability to make new weapons.
• Syria has proposed moving the stockpile out of the country for destruction and the OPCW said that was the "most viable" option.
• The mission stems from a deadly Aug. 21 attack on opposition-held suburbs of Damascus in which the United Nations determined the nerve agent sarin was used. Hundreds of people were killed. The U.S. and Western allies accuse Syria's government of being responsible, while Damascus blames the rebels.
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New federal program designed to help communities prepare for, cope with future severe droughts

• TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) -- Federal agencies will provide better and more accessible information about matters such as long-term weather prospects and soil moisture levels under a program designed to help communities prepare for future droughts and respond more effectively when they happen, Obama administration officials said Thursday.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

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