Author: Sunfire

RT News

Amid concerns of an Al-Qaeda effort to create an undetectable bomb, the US has ordered tighter security at some airports in Europe and the Middle East offering direct flights to the United States.

On Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said he directed the Transportation Security Administration to put more security measures in place after sharing “recent and relevant” information with foreign allies.   Continue reading “‘Undetectable bomb’ threat: US urges increased security on international flights”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — A surprisingly robust job market is energizing the 5-year-old U.S. recovery and driving the economy closer to full health.

Employers added 288,000 jobs in June and helped cut the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest since 2008. It was the fifth straight gain above 200,000 — the best such stretch since the late 1990s tech boom.   Continue reading “June Job Report Shows US Recovery is Accelerating”

RT News

A controversial flu researcher has modified the flu virus responsible for the 2009 pandemic to allow it evade the human immune system. His lab’s previous works include recreating the Spanish flu and making a deadly bird flu strain highly transmittable.

The yet-to-be-published research by Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka and his team is meant to give scientists better ways to fight influenza outbreaks, but gives chills to some people in academia, who are fearful that accidental release of the strain would result in a global disaster, according to a report by the Independent.   Continue reading “‘Humdinger’: Swine flu virus which killed half-million modified to ‘incurable’”

RT News

Israeli police are investigating the death of an Arab teenager, whose body was discovered in a forest near Jerusalem. He may have been kidnapped in a revenge attack after three Israeli teenagers were found dead after an apparent abduction.

The body of Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir, 17, was charred and bore signs of violence. It was found hours after police were informed of a youth being forced into a car in a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, according to Israeli media.   Continue reading “Arab teen kidnapped and killed in Jerusalem in suspected revenge attack”

Mail.com

A California truck driver pulled into the Blue Beacon Truck Wash in central Pennsylvania and spotted an advertisement for low-cost health exams for truckers. Needing one for his commercial driver’s license, he called the number on the sign and was picked up by a woman in an old Ford Tempo.

She drove him to her town house, where she performed the $65 physical, had him provide a urine sample and faxed the required forms to the California Department of Transportation. It all seemed a bit odd to trucker Todd Wakefield, whose suspicions were heightened when California authorities told him about irregularities in the paperwork. After some clever sleuthing of his own, Wakefield turned his findings over to Pennsylvania State Police — who say they uncovered a scam that snagged at least 16 commercial drivers they know about, and probably more they don’t.   Continue reading “Cops: Truckers duped by woman impersonating doctor”

RT News

The latest drilling techniques for obtaining gas, which drill horizontally as opposed to the more traditional vertical drilling, shows a higher rate of leaking methane, according to a study that could spell problems for fracking across the nation.

After poring over data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection involving more than 41,000 wells, it was determined that more than 6 percent of the active gas wells drilled in the Marcellus region of Pennsylvania “show compromised cement and/or casing integrity,” according to an academic paper published on Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.    Continue reading “Fracking industry fumes as researchers reveal high levels of leaking methane”

RT News

Less than a week after announcing the deployment of additional US personnel to Iraq, the White House has said that up to 300 more troops are being sent to the country to bolster security at key facilities amid an organized push by ISIS militants.

In a letter to Congress on Monday, President Obama wrote that additional troop deployments are “a prudent measure to protect US citizens and property.”    Continue reading “White House announces an additional 300 troops to Iraq”

RT News

At least 2,417 people have been killed in Iraq in June 2014, the majority of them civilians, according to figures released by the United Nations. The death toll in the violence-plagued country is the highest since May 2007.

The dead include 1,531 civilians and 886 members of Iraq’s security forces killed in terrorist attacks and violence, UNIRAQ, the UN mission to Iraq, said in a statement.

In addition, a total of 2,287 people were injured in attacks in June.   Continue reading “More than 2,400 killed in Iraq in June, highest monthly toll since 2007”

RT News

Russia’s president has blamed the turmoil in Ukraine on the country’s newly-elected leader Petro Poroshenko. Vladimir Putin also criticized the West for its intention to turn the planet into a “global barracks.”

Russia’s president has laid the blame for the ongoing turmoil between Kiev and south-eastern regions squarely at the feet of Petro Poroshenko, after the Ukrainian leader terminated the ceasefire.   Continue reading “Putin to West: Stop turning world into ‘global barracks,’ dictating rules to others”

Mail.com

HOUSTON (AP) — Rushing into a Houston home, police officer Austin Huckabee encountered a drunken, combative man bleeding profusely on the kitchen floor. He quickly realized the blood was spurting in rhythm with the man’s heart and cardiac arrest was just moments away.

Pulling a tourniquet from his belt, the former Army captain and his partner restrained the man, wrapped the band around his arm and twisted an attached rod to tighten it until the bleeding stopped. Then Huckabee waited for paramedics, knowing a life had been saved.   Continue reading “Tourniquets make comeback with American police”

Oh goodie, “Jeffrey Dahmer the 2nd” is back on the streets!

Mail.com

NEW YORK (AP) — A former New York Police Department officer was set to leave jail on Tuesday after a judge overturned his conviction in a bizarre case accusing him of plotting to kidnap, kill and eat young women.

Judge Paul Gardephe ruled late Monday that there was insufficient evidence to support a jury’s guilty verdict in the kidnapping conspiracy conviction of Gilberto Valle. His lawyers had argued that the alleged plots were really fantasy online role play that never put anyone in harm’s way.   Continue reading “Conviction of NYC cop cannibalism case overturned”

RT News

The Supreme Court of the United States said Monday that it won’t consider a request from Google to weigh in on a matter concerning the Silicon Valley giant’s Street View map feature.

Refusal on the part of SCOTUS to grant Google’s request for an appeal from the high court now leaves intact an earlier decision handed down by a federal appellate panel in California.   Continue reading “Supreme Court declines to vindicate Google over Street View violations”

RT News

A little-known US intelligence research agency hopes to revolutionize the machine mind by finding firms capable of writing computer algorithms nearly identical to those implemented by the human brain.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which operates under the Director of National Intelligence, will host a Proposers’ Day conference for the Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) program on July 17, the agency said in a press release.   Continue reading “US spy agency trying to develop computers that think like humans”

RT News

High-ranking US officials, while offering little in way of evidence to support their claims, are sounding the alarm on the possibility of foreigners in Syria initiating an attack on the US, sparking fears over airport security.

The message out of Washington at the weekend was at best incoherent, at worst downright dangerous.

In the same week that US President Barack Obama asked Congress to fork over $500 million to support the Syrian opposition in its three-year battle to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad, the American leader also warned on the possibility of European passport holders in Syria slipping into America to wreak unholy havoc.    Continue reading “Islamic bogeyman in Syria strikes fear in Washington”

Mail.com

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Distracted by the World Cup atmosphere, American fan Jack Smith slipped his card into an ATM in a Rio airport.

He believes the card was cloned in an instant and, over several days before he discovered it, his account was debited for $12,000, a loss he said his bank would cover. “I’ve probably met 60 people here, and 20 have been hit,” said Smith, of Knoxville, Tennessee. “Of course these were for smaller amounts, although somebody told me they were out $6,000. But I’m scared. I won’t ever use an ATM machine here.”   Continue reading “Fans lose things, get robbed amid exuberance”

Mail.com

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The downcast faces on computer screens are 1,500 miles away at a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas: a 20-year old Honduran woman arrested rafting across the Rio Grande and a 23-year-old man caught under similar circumstances.

Four agents wearing headsets reel through a list of personal questions, spending up to an hour on each adult and even longer on children. On an average day, hundreds of migrants are questioned on camera by agents in San Diego and other stations on the U.S.-Mexico border.   Continue reading “Border Patrol has lots of agents _ in wrong places”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to nominate former Procter & Gamble executive Robert McDonald as the next Veterans Affairs secretary, as the White House seeks to shore up an agency beset by treatment delays and struggling to deal with an influx of new veterans returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An administration official said Obama would announce McDonald’s appointment Monday. If confirmed by the Senate, McDonald would succeed Eric Shinseki, the retired four-star general who resigned last month as the scope of the issues at veterans’ hospitals became apparent.   Continue reading “Obama picks ex-P&G head to lead Veterans Affairs”

Mail.com

BAGHDAD (AP) — The al-Qaida breakaway group that has seized much of northeastern Syria and huge tracts of neighboring Iraq formally declared the establishment of a new Islamic state on Sunday and demanded allegiance from Muslims worldwide.

With brutal efficiency, the Sunni extremist group has carved out a large chunk of territory that has effectively erased the border between Iraq and Syria and laid the foundations of its proto-state. But the declaration, made on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, could trigger a wave of infighting among the Sunni militant factions that formed a loose alliance in the blitz across Iraq and impact the broader international jihadist movement, especially the future of a-Qaida.   Continue reading “Al-Qaida splinter declares new Islamic caliphate”

Mail.com

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Two men exchanged gunfire early Sunday on the city’s always-crowded Bourbon Street in the celebrated French Quarter and nine people were shot in the crossfire, including two who were critically wounded, police said.

Images captured from a surveillance camera above a bar showed people running down the famous street in the chaos of the shooting at 2:45 a.m., NOLA.com The Times-Picayune reported (http://bit.ly/1iRk304). Police and emergency workers responded immediately and attended to victims as other revelers looked on.   Continue reading “Police: 9 shot on Bourbon Street in New Orleans”