5 Things that happened this week
Week of November 13, 2015
November 13, 2015
- University President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin announced Monday they would step down from their jobs at the University of Missouri. The resignations come amid growing protests by black students and was triggered in part by a strike by members of Missouri’s football team, who say administrators haven’t done enough to counter racism on campus.
- President Obama awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Captain Florent A. Groberg on Thursday at the White House. In August of 2012, Groberg selflessly sacrificed his own life when he physically pushed a suicide bomber away from his security detail and tackled him to the ground. Four members of Groberg’s formation were killed in the detonation, but Captain Groberg’s actions to push the bomber away from the formation, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, “significantly minimized the impact of the coordinated suicide bombers’ attack on the formation, saving the lives of his comrades and several senior leaders.”
- A Department of Defense official said Tuesday that the Pentagon has deployed F-15C fighter jets to Turkey to protect slow-flying American attack planes hitting Islamic State targets. The deployment is part of the Pentagon’s new strategy to counter Islamic State in Syria. Also being used to strike Islamic State are B-1 bombers and A-10 and AC-130 attack planes.
- San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams said there’s a “very strong case” for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in December if the economy continues to move in a positive direction. The Fed hasn’t raised interest rates, which have been near zero since the 2008 financial crisis, in almost 10 years.
- Kurdish forces, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, are gaining ground as of Friday in a large-scale offensive against Islamic State to retake the town of Sinjar.