Author: Sunfire

Mail.com

BAGHDAD (AP) — America’s top military leader arrived in Iraq on Saturday on a previously unannounced visit, his first since a U.S.-led coalition began launching airstrikes against the extremist Islamic State group.

The visit by Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, came just two days after he told Congress that the United States would consider dispatching a modest number of American forces to fight with Iraqi troops against the extremist group.   Continue reading “Top US general in Iraq amid IS airstrike campaign”

Mail.com

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s prime minister vowed that world leaders would deliver on an initiative to add $2 trillion to global GDP, promising freer trade and more investment in infrastructure as heads of the 20 largest economies began cementing plans to drag sagging growth out of the doldrums.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has repeatedly promised this year’s Group of 20 gathering in the Australian city of Brisbane would be more than a talkfest, said the growth plans would add millions of jobs and boost global GDP by “more than 2 percent” above expected levels over the next five years.   Continue reading “G-20 summit opens in Australia; growth tops agenda”

Mail.com

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — It was just a few weeks ago that the family of one victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting learned a caseworker had been assigned to work with them following their daughter’s death nearly two years ago, an advisory commission heard Friday.

The mother of one of the 20 first-graders killed in the December 2012 shooting said that lack of communication is emblematic of the confusion about what services are accessible to the families and what resources they can tap.   Continue reading “Newtown victims’ parents say need still unmet”

RT

Apple customers are being warned by computer security experts, including the United States government’s own cyber squad, to watch out for a new bug affecting iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.

The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US-CERT, said Thursday that users of mobile phones and tablets running Apple’s latest iOS software should be careful of what they click. A so-called “masque attack” is taking users by storm, tricking iPhone and iPad owners into installing malicious software resembling legitimate applications but actually embedded with code that could compromise an entire device.   Continue reading “US government warns iOS users their devices may be in danger”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is ordering top-to-bottom changes in how the nation’s nuclear arsenal is managed, vowing to invest billions of dollars more to fix what ails a force beset by leadership lapses, security flaws and sagging morale.

Hagel is scheduled to announce Friday the results of two reviews — one by Pentagon officials and a second by outside experts — and to spell out actions he has ordered to improve nuclear force management. Two senior defense officials discussed the Hagel plan Thursday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be cited by name.   Continue reading “Hagel: Top-to-bottom changes needed in nuke force”

Mail.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles police are increasingly relying on technology that not only tells patrol officers where crime is most likely to occur but also identifies and keeps track of ex-cons and other bad guys they believe are most likely to commit them.

Police say the effort has already helped reduce crime in one of the city’s most notorious and historically gang-ridden neighborhoods. “This is a tremendous step forward. Without this, I couldn’t do my job,” said Capt. Ed Prokop, head of the Los Angeles Police Department division that watches over the grimly nicknamed “Shootin’ Newton” area.   Continue reading “Los Angeles police use data to target crime”

Mail.com

GENEVA (AP) — A U.N. panel investigating war crimes in Syria says the Islamic State group has denied food and medicine to hundreds of thousands of people and hidden its fighters among civilians since a U.S.-led coalition began launching airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

The panel says Syrians and Iraqis are subjected to an Islamic State “rule of terror” from its calculated use of public brutality and indoctrination to ensure the submission of communities under its control. That includes repeated violations against children and women.   Continue reading “UN: IS denies food aid to hundreds of thousands”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service officers chasing a Texas Army veteran across the White House lawn in September figured they had him cornered when he encountered the thick bushes on the property.

To their surprise the bushes were no match for the fence-jumper, who dashed into the executive mansion through a pair of unlocked doors, knocking aside an officer physically too small to tackle him. She would then fumble with her own equipment as the man carrying a knife ran deep inside the president’s home, according to a Homeland Security review of the Sept. 19 incident.   Continue reading “Officers surprised bushes didn’t stop WH intruder”

Mail.com

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia’s president said Thursday she is lifting a state of emergency imposed to control an Ebola outbreak that has ravaged the country, as Mali reported a fourth person now believed to have died of Ebola in its capital.

Also Thursday, Doctors Without Borders announced that accelerated clinical trials will be launched in West Africa to speed the search for a treatment for the virus that has killed more than 5,000 people.   Continue reading “Liberia president to end Ebola state of emergency”

Mail.com

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah truck driver accused of keeping two women as sex slaves in his semitrailer as he traveled the country had four more victims, federal prosecutors said in court documents.

Some of the new accusations against defendant Timothy Jay Vafeades date back 20 years. In two of the new incidents detailed in the documents filed Monday, prosecutors say Vafeades, now 54, lured the women to his truck, then forcibly altered their appearances and ground down their teeth while holding them prisoner for months.   Continue reading “Utah trucker accused of keeping more sex slaves”

Mail.com

ISTANBUL (AP) — Militant leaders from the Islamic State group and al-Qaida gathered at a farm house in northern Syria last week and agreed on a plan to stop fighting each other and work together against their opponents, a high-level Syrian opposition official and a rebel commander have told The Associated Press.

Such an accord could present new difficulties for Washington’s strategy against the IS group. While warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition strike militants from the air, the Obama administration has counted on arming “moderate” rebel factions to push them back on the ground. Those rebels, already considered relatively weak and disorganized, would face far stronger opposition if the two heavy-hitting militant groups now are working together.   Continue reading “AP sources: IS, al-Qaida reach accord in Syria”

Gas prices here in north west New Jersey are $2.59/gallon for regular at
present.

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — The average price of gasoline will be below $3 a gallon in 2015, the government predicted Wednesday. If the sharply lower estimate holds true, U.S. consumers will save $61 billion on gas compared with this year.

In a monthly report, the Energy Department reduced its forecast for global oil prices next year by $18 a barrel to $83. Weakness in the global economy will crimp demand for oil, while production in places like the U.S. keeps rising.   Continue reading “Gas to average under $3 in 2015, government says”

Mail.com

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. (AP) — The U.S. government now patrols nearly half the Mexican border by drones alone in a largely unheralded shift to control desolate stretches where there are no agents, camera towers, ground sensors or fences, and it plans to expand the strategy to the Canadian border.

It represents a significant departure from a decades-old approach that emphasizes boots on the ground and fences. Since 2000, the number of Border Patrol agents on the 1,954-mile border more than doubled to surpass 18,000 and fencing multiplied nine times to 700 miles.   Continue reading “Drones patrol half of Mexico border”

RT

The US House is expected to vote and pass legislation on Friday that would finally sanction the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would move heavy crude oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

Republican US Rep. Bill Cassidy introduced the House’s Keystone XL legislation shortly after his opponent in the still-undecided Louisiana Senate race – incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu – introduced a measure in the Upper Chamber. Both legislators want to be seen as a key player in pushing the pipeline through Congress ahead of their Dec. 6 runoff election.   Continue reading “US House poised to approve Keystone XL tar sands pipeline”

RT

Americans spent over $7.5 billion on one drug over a one-year period ‒ more than any other medication. And yet no one knows how the powerful pill works. But that doesn’t keep Big Pharma from marketing it for a multitude of disorders.

“Quick: what’s the top-selling drug in the United States?” the Daily Beast asked. “Prozac? Viagra? Maybe something for heart disease?”   Continue reading “US spends most on this drug… and no one knows how it works”

Mail.com

DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) — The European Space Agency’s unmanned Rosetta probe successfully released a lander toward the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Wednesday, putting it on its final seven-hour journey to a historic rendezvous with the fast-moving lump of dust and ice.

The audacious landing attempt is the climax of a decade-long mission to study the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) wide comet, which is traveling at 41,000 mph (66,000 kph). It is also the end of a 6.4 billion-kilometer (4 billion-mile) journey on which Rosetta carried its sidekick lander Philae piggyback.   Continue reading “European spacecraft begins descending to comet 67P”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for a man convicted of killing Washington intern Chandra Levy are making their pitch to a judge that he deserves a new trial because of what they call problems with a key witness.

Lawyers for Ingmar Guandique and the government were scheduled Wednesday to begin three days of hearings. Guandique’s lawyers say he was convicted on the basis of false or misleading testimony given by a one-time cellmate and prosecutors knew or should have known the testimony was false and investigated the man further.   Continue reading “Hearing on new trial to begin in Chandra Levy case”

RT

Scientists have found traces of leaked radiation from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident off the coast of California. Radiation experts, though, say the levels are harmless.

Trace amounts of isotopes linked to Fukushima radiation were detected about 100 miles (160km) west of Eureka, a city in northern California, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), a Massachusetts-based research organization, announced Monday in a press release.   Continue reading “Fukushima radiation detected 100 miles off California coast”

Mail.com

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — After being buried under more than a foot of snow, parts of the Rockies and Upper Midwest were getting their first icy touch of arctic air on Tuesday. And the rest of the Midwest and the East are expecting a dose later in the week, with temperatures forecast as much as 40 degrees below average.

The frigid air was pushed in by a powerful storm that hit Alaska with hurricane-force winds over the weekend. A look at the storm and its effects:   Continue reading “Arctic blast descends on Rockies, Upper Midwest”