• Outgoing U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley was introduced as the next president of the United States by comedian Jim Gaffigan at a white-tie gala where Haley, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from India, poked fun at her own heritage, her boss and the current political climate. "Everyone in Washington called me with advice about this speech. They all said the same thing. Do not under any circumstances make any jokes about the president. So good night everybody!" quipped Haley on Thursday night at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. "Actually the president called me this morning and gave me some really good advice. He said if I get stuck for laughs, just brag about his accomplishments," she added. The former Republican South Carolina governor made the jabs at the annual roast hosted by New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan, which draws luminaries from finance and politics. Haley, 46, joked that last year's event with "boy scout" House Speaker Paul Ryan was "a little boring." "So this year you wanted to spice things up again, right? I get it. You wanted an Indian woman, but Elizabeth Warren failed her DNA test," Haley said, adding: "Actually, when the president found out I was Indian American, he asked me if I was from the same tribe as Elizabeth Warren." Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts and possible 2020 presidential candidate, recently released DNA test results that genealogists say show she could be anywhere from 1/64th to 1/1024th American Indian. President Donald Trump has long ridiculed Warren's claim of American Indian heritage by calling her "Pocahontas."
• Prince Harry scaled the Sydney Harbor Bridge on Friday to raise a flag marking the arrival of the Invictus Games, his brainchild and the focus of his current royal tour of Australia and the South Pacific. The sporting event, founded by Harry in 2014, starts today. It gives sick and injured military personnel and veterans the opportunity to compete in sports such as wheelchair basketball and to find inspiration to recover. Harry, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, four members of the Australian team and the widow of an Australian veteran climbed more than 1,000 steps up the back of an arch to raise the Invictus Games Sydney 2018 flag. The flag will fly 440 feet above Sydney Harbor until the games close on Oct. 27. During the descent, Harry hugged fellow climber Gwen Cherne, a games ambassador whose husband Peter Cafe, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, took his own life in February. "We were talking about mental health and really working on changing the way that our global community looks at mental health and deals with it," Cherne said later. Around 500 athletes from 18 nations will compete in venues around Sydney.
A Section on 10/20/2018