TODAY'S TALKING POINTS 09-17-15

TODAY'S TALKING POINTS Carly Fiorina crushed her rivals in the second GOP debate. Not only did she steal the two most-tweeted moments of the night — first when she put Donald Trump in his place for his sexist comments about her face, and second when she passionately argued that Republicans should shut down the government to defundPlanned Parenthood — but she also commanded a big chunk of the total speaking time and gained the most Twitter followers.  The debate wasn’t The Donald Trump show that some feared, but the businessman still managed to keep his edge — except for when underdog Marco Rubio knocked the wind out of him for saying America's a country where people speak English, not Spanish. Jeb Bush admitted to smoking weed 40 years ago — and apologized to his mom for it. Before the main event, Lindsey Graham came out on top at the undercard debate, prompting Twitter users to place bets that, like Fiorina, he’ll end up on the main stage next time. The vote of confidence may have had something to do with the fact that his proposed plan to settle inter-party tensions was to get everybody drunk. A Muslim 14-year-old was arrested for bringing a clock to school. School officials in Irving, Texas, mistook the homemade clock that 9th-grader Ahmed Mohamed brought to school for a bomb. Alarm bells were raised about Islamophobia when one of the arresting officers who greeted Mohamed in the principal's office said, “Yup, that’s who I thought it was,” when he saw the boy. Mohamed had never met the man before. The ensuing outrage on the Internet didn’t stop the homemade clock that Mohamed brought to school from being confiscated, or the boy from being suspended. But everyone from tech superstars like Mark Zuckerberg to President Barack Obama weighed in with messages of support. Hillary Clinton dropped the mic on the whole situation by tweeting, “Assumptions and fear don’t keep us safe — they hold us back.” People across the Internet started taking their clocks off the wall to show their support. Mohamed spoke out later in the day yesterday to encourage inquisitive kids like him, telling them, "Don't let them change who you are." He also claimedhis civil rights had been violated because he hadn't been allowed to speak to a parent or lawyer while detained by authorities. Mohamed isn't the first student of color to be thrown in handcuffs for a science project. The Texas city where he was arrested has a long, disturbing historyof Islamophobia.  A Chile quake sparked a massive evacuation. An 8.3-magnitude earthquakerocked cities and caused 15-foot waves to slam into the coast. The disaster killed at least five people and prompted the evacuation of 1 million. Russia wants to have a military-to-military chat with the U.S. Russia has kept mostly quiet about keeping a military presence in Syria until now, but the U.S. might be interested in learning more about their intentions. Russia has claimed to have the same goal as the U.S.: defeating the Islamic State group.