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    Antonia Blumberg

    Antonia Blumberg

    Reporter, HuffPost

  • Trump Orders Staff To Boycott White House Correspondents' Dinner

    The annual fundraising gala won't feature a comedian this year, but that wasn't enough to lure the president to the event.

  • Why A Wisconsin Man Decided To Take On ISIS

    DERIKE, Syria (RNS) Like many Americans, Jordan Matson is outraged by the brutality of the Islamic State. Now, the 28-year-old Racine, Wis., man is recovering in a hospital in northeastern Syria from a shrapnel wound in his foot, the result of a mortar attack by Islamic State fighters in Jazaa, along the Iraqi border. Tall with slightly graying hair, Matson conceded that people back home might call him crazy for joining Kurdish forces three weeks ago to help end the Islamic State’s reign of terror.

  • 8 Better Ways Russia Could Have Spent Its Olympic Billions

    For the record, we have nothing against the Olympics. It is a noble, ancient tradition, full of camaraderie, sportsmanship and healthy competition. One of the downsides of this "healthy competition," though, is the increasingly exorbitant price tag host countries pay to put on the games -- relying on private donors and taxpayers to foot the bill.

  • PHOTOS: If You Were On The Ground In Smoggy Beijing Today...

    Just two weeks into 2014, Beijing is witnessing its first smog emergency of the year. The air quality index for China's capital city, which measures the concentration of pollution particles, currently stands at 347 -- while the AQI should not exceed 25 micrograms per cubic meter normally. "The skyscrapers in the CBD [Central Business District] have all vanished," said one citizen, according to Xinhua.

  • Military Investigates Marines For Allegedly Burning Iraqi Corpses (GRAPHIC PHOTOS)

    Disturbing photos have surfaced allegedly depicting U.S. Marines burning the corpses of Iraqi insurgents, a crime that goes against both U.S. military code and Islamic custom. TMZ recently acquired 41 photographs, allegedly taken in Fallujah in 2004, showing Marines dousing bodies with gasoline, posing next to charred remains and even rifling through corpses' pockets. In January 2013, Staff Sgt. Edward W. Deptola admitted to desecrating corpses in Afghanistan.

  • Rockets Fired Near Sharon's Burial Place

    Gaza militants fired two rockets that hit an area close to the ranch where former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon was laid to rest on Monday, a military spokeswoman said. "Two rockets hit the Shaar HaNegev region" but fell in an uninhabited area, the army said, referring to the area around the northern border with Gaza. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the militants targeted the town of Sderot, which lies very close to the Gaza border, and just four kilometres (2.5 miles) west of Sycamore Ranch, causing no injuries or damage.

  • How Banning An Antisemitic Comedian Might Give Him Exactly What He Wants

    Before last week, few people in the Anglosphere knew the name Dieudonné. A "mediocre" French comedian, according to The New Yorker, Dieudonné garnered attention for delivering anti-Semitic stand up routines and inventing the controversial quenelle gesture, an apparently inverted Nazi salute. This all changed last week when several French cities began banning the comedian's shows, a move backed by French President Francois Hollande and the country's highest court.

  • PHOTOS: Brazil's Kayapo Meet Modernity On Their Own Terms

    A powerful and rapidly growing group among Brazil's 240 indigenous tribes, the Kayapo consists of roughly 9,000 people, While some cannot read or write, others have started Facebook pages and shop in supermarkets. According to National Geographic reporter Chip Brown, the group's particular success and relative wealth seems to stem precisely from its fierce assertion of tradition paired with an openness to new technologies and modes of communication.

  • Report: AK-47 Inventor Repented Killings Before He Died

    Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the legendary AK-47 assault rifle, turned to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church shortly before his death to express fears he was personally guilty for those it killed. Kalashnikov, who died in December at the age of 94, in April wrote a lengthy emotional letter to Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, Izvestia, a pro-Kremlin daily, reported on Monday. Kalashnikov, whose funeral was attended by President Vladimir Putin, came up with the durable and simple rifle design after experiencing the Red Army's dire lack of weapons during World War II.

  • PHOTOS: Behind The Scenes Of Migrant Work

    Separated by poor economies, war, natural disasters and more, countless families turn to the Internet to maintain communication, which can range from spotty to unreliable at best. Migrant workers make up a large group of those separated from spouses, children and communities and there is nowhere else in the world where they are as prominently visible as in Dubai.

  • Brazil To Evict Illegal Settlers On Awá Tribal Land

    The New Year has brought some good tidings for the Awá people of Brazil. It has been over 10 years since Brazil's government formally demarcated Awá territory in the state of Maranhão, but the country has done little to enforce the boundaries. This week, however, the government launched an operation to evict illegal settlers from Awá land.

  • Unemployed Frenchman Lands A Job After Plastering Billboard With CV

    In what sounds like the plot of a feel-good holiday movie, Frenchman Laurent Le Bret finally found a job in a highly unusual way. The 41-year-old Le Bret spent five months jobless, a familiar story given France's nearly 11 percent unemployment rate amid the country's worst crisis since 1997. Fed up, Le Bret got creative and on Dec. 17 posted his CV to a roadside billboard along southern France's RN7 highway.

  • South Sudan Peace Talks To Begin Monday

    Formal peace talks between South Sudan's government and rebels are set to open Monday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, delegates and diplomats said. The talks, brokered by the East African regional bloc IGAD and aimed at ending three weeks of unrest in South Sudan, are set to start at 3:00pm (1200 GMT), Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda said. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • This Is The Plan To Destroy Syria's Chemical Weapons

    The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has finalized its plan for the destruction of Syria's stockpile of weapons and precursor chemicals, with the most toxic material to be destroyed at sea aboard a U.S. ship. The exact text of the plan remains classified, but Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu sketched the broad outlines in a speech Tuesday to the OPCW's 41-nation executive council, the text of which was released Wednesday. Uzumcu says "the major elements" of the destruction plan are in place but cautions there may be delays.

  • LOOK: India Mourns On First Anniversary Of Brutal Gang Rape

    It has been exactly one year since a 23-year-old medical student was raped while traveling home with a friend in the Indian capital, a horrific crime that forced India to confront violence against women as voices around the country rose up in protest. "Women across India still live with the daily fear of sexual assault, they are still told that their dress or conduct will invite violence against them and the police are still most cavalier in dealing with such cases," the Hindustan Times wrote in an editorial published on the anniversary of the attack. Indians gathered on Monday to commemorate the tragedy and remember the long and critical road ahead for women's rights in India and around the globe.

  • Thousands Queue To Pay Tribute To Mandela

    Up to 14,000 people viewed Nelson Mandela's body on the first day of his lying in state, the government said Thursday, announcing that shuttle services for the second day had reached capacity. Today's numbers are still being determined," the government said in a statement. "Government appreciates the overwhelming response from the public to pay homage to Tata Madiba," it said, referring to Mandela as "father" in Zulu and using his clan name.

  • 12 Neglected Children Rescued From Australian Settlement

    A dozen filthy, neglected children, some with deformities or disabilities due to generations of inbreeding, have been found on a rural Australian settlement in an incest case that has shocked the nation. Over four generations uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters had sex with each other, raising younger generations that also went on to create further inbred offspring together. All the evidence pointed "inescapably to inter-generational incestuous relationships and intra-familial sexual abuse," a Children's Court judgment in the case, published for the first time this week, revealed.

  • Photo Purporting To Show Mandela Lying In State Sparks Anger

    The South African government said Thursday it would not release photographs of Nelson Mandela lying in state, and urged people to shun a purported image of the dead president posted on the Internet. While tens of thousands queued to file past the democracy icon's open coffin in Pretoria, social media was buzzing with condemnation of an apparent sneaked photo of the president's face that had been posted online. "Government is aware of social media activity on the existence or otherwise of a picture of President Mandela lying in state," said an official statement.

  • Uruguay Marijuana Ruling 'Illegal'?

    Uruguay's move to legalise the production and sale of marijuana breaks international law, the world drugs body said Wednesday, warning it would encourage addiction. "Uruguay is breaking the international conventions on drug control with the cannabis legislation approved by its congress," said the International Narcotics Control Board, a UN agency that oversees the implementation of international treaties on drugs.

  • LOOK: First Photos Of Kim's Ousted Uncle Emerge

    After several days of speculation, North Korea confirmed that Kim Jong Un's once-powerful uncle was removed from power. The North Korean regime accused Jang Song Thaek of a series of transgressions, including instigating party dissent and squandering party funds on drugs, gambling and women, the Associated Press reports. On Monday, the first images of Jang emerged since the news of his ousting.