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5 things you need to know Monday

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Officials in the Iraqi city of Halabja told workers to stay home on Monday for cleanup efforts following a magnitude-7.3 earthquake Sunday that jolted the region near the border between Iran and Iraq. It killed at least 335 people and injured thousands, authorities reported. The U. S. Geological Survey said the epicenter was 19 miles outside of Halabja. The semi-official Iranian ILNA news agency reported that at least 14 provinces had been impacted by the earthquake. Iran is prone to near-daily quakes as it sits on many major fault lines. Esmail Najar, head of Iran’s National Disaster Management Organization, said “some injured people might be buried under the rubble in (the city of) Ghasr-e Shirin.”
New Delhi officials will lobby Monday for a plan to ration the use of private cars amid a grimy cloud of pollution so foul that United Airlines has halted flights to India’s capital. Many schools have been closed since the toxic air mass descended on the region almost a week ago. The government has banned most construction and industrial activity. Most trucks and heavy vehicles have been parked. Residents were urged to stay inside and wear masks outside. The city is considering a plan to blast water from fire trucks and water cannons into the air to help wash away the haze, but the region’s pollution crisis is nothing new.
President Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte met Monday on the sidelines of the ASEAN economic summit in the Philippines. The two leaders focused on fighting the Islamic State, drug trafficking, and trade issues and touched only briefly on human rights. Trump posed for pictures on Sunday with Duterte, the host of the summit and a hard-liner whose domestic war on drugs has included extrajudicial killings. Earlier that day, Trump tried to clarify comments suggesting he believed Vladimir Putin’s denials more than the conclusions of U. S. intelligence officials that Russia meddled in the U. S. election. “I’m with our agencies,” Trump said, giving a rare (and grudging) endorsement to the notion that Russia sought to affect last year’s presidential vote.
The NFL’s compensation committee will reconvene Monday to discuss the proposed contract extension for commissioner Roger Goodell, according to multiple reports. ESPN reported Sunday morning that the committee, which consists of six owners, will speak on a conference call Monday, less than a week after reports that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has informed members of the group that he planned to block the extension with a lawsuit. The network also reported that Goodell’s most recent counterproposal to NFL owners sought “about $49.5 million per year, as well as the lifetime use of a private jet and lifetime health insurance for his family,” citing an anonymous source. An NFL spokesman disputed that report.
Vanity Fair is expected to name Radhika Jones as its next editor, according to a report from The New York Times. Jones, 44, the editorial director of the books department at The Times and a former top editor at Time magazine, replaces 68-year-old Graydon Carter, who announced in September that he would step down from the glossy, general interest magazine after 25 years at the helm. Condé Nast, which publishes Vanity Fair, plans to announce the decision as soon as Monday, the report said, citing two people with knowledge of it.

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