Author Archives: Pat Turnbaugh

Leaked Document Claims ISIS Present, Planning Attacks in Thailand

Multiple published reports indicate police in Thailand have information claiming that a group of 10 people linked to the Islamic State allegedly entered the country to carry out terrorist attacks.

Reuters reported a leaked memo cites intelligence from Russia’s Federal Security Service that indicated 10 ISIS-linked Syrians traveled to Thailand in October to attack targets tied to Russia.

The BBC reported the document, which was marked “urgent,” said the Syrians did not travel together and at least six have gone to areas that are popular with Russian tourists.

A police spokesman confirmed to the Associated Press that the document was authentic, but he could not verify if the intelligence within it was accurate. Reuters quoted the commissioner of Thailand’s immigration bureau, Nathathorn Prausoontorn, as saying there isn’t any information that ties the 21 Syrians who entered Thailand in October and were still there to the Islamic State.

Russia has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria since late September, which intensified after ISIS bombed a commercial Russian plane in October and killed 224 people.

Pentagon Opens All Military Positions to Women

Women will be allowed to hold any job in the United States military — including those in combat units — following a historic announcement by Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Thursday.

Carter said at a news conference that for the first time ever, women in the U.S. military will be allowed to do jobs from which they were previously barred, given they meet specific standards.

“They’ll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars and lead infantry soldiers into combat,” Carter reportedly said, according to a recap posted on the Department of Defense’s official website. “They’ll be able to serve as Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps infantry, Air Force parajumpers and everything else that was previously open only to men.”

The jobs will formally become available to women next month, according to the Department of Defense posting, though Carter acknowledged that it will take some time for full integration.

Carter said at the news conference that leaders from all branches of the military had spent the past three years studying the assimilation of women into the previously men-only positions, according to the Department of Defense. Leaders from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Special Operations Command didn’t indicate that women should be barred from any job.

While the Marine Corps reportedly asked that certain jobs be kept men-only, like machine gunner and fire support reconnaissance, the Department of Defense quoted Carter as saying “we are a joint force and I have decided to make a decision which applies to the entire force.”

The news wasn’t immediately welcomed by everyone.

Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the chairmen of the Armed Services Committees in their respective legislative houses, released a joint statement in which they said Carter’s decision “will have a consequential impact on our servicemembers and our military’s warfighting capabilities.” They said they want time to review the materials that played into Carter’s decision, including a 1,000-page report from the Marine Integrated Task Force.

One of the findings of that report, according to a September 2015 news release, was that all-male units generally outperformed integrated units in tests designed to simulate combat situations.

“We expect the Department to send over its implementation plans as quickly as possible to ensure our Committees have all the information necessary to conduct proper and rigorous oversight,” McCain and Thornberry said in the statement, adding that they also wanted to see the department’s stance on if changes to the Selective Service Act might now be required.

CDC Reports Rise in Rabbit Fever

United States health officials are working to find out what’s behind a rise in cases of rabbit fever.

The rare disease is also known as tularemia and can be life-threatening, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The organization said Thursday that there are usually only 125 cases of the disease in the United States every year, but there were 100 in just four states as of September 30. There has now been 235 total cases, the Associated Press reported.

According to the CDC, the disease is caused by a bacteria to which rabbits and other kinds of small rodents are easily susceptible. Humans can contract the disease through tick bites, handling animals that have been infected or by breathing in the infectious bacteria.

The CDC says the disease can lead to a variety of symptoms, depending on the bacteria enters the human body. The most serious infections occur when the bacteria spreads into the lungs, either directly via breathing or through the bloodstream after leaving an infection untreated.

The disease is treated through antibiotics and most patients have full recoveries, according to the CDC. But its symptoms (which can include fever, joint and muscle pain, difficulty breathing and vomiting) may make it hard to diagnose, as it can be mistaken for more common illnesses.

An 85-year-old man died and at least 48 people were hospitalized this year, the CDC said.

The CDC report says it’s not clear what is behind the increase in cases, particularly in the four-state region of Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and South Dakota where there were the 100 documented cases through the end of September. A possible explanation is that heavy rainfall there fostered vegetation growth and bacteria survival, as well as increased rodent populations.

While it’s not explicitly mentioned as a potential cause in the report released Thursday, the CDC website does list tularemia as a potential weapon that could be used in bioterrorism attacks. The website notes the bacteria is highly infections and can be transmitted through the air.

The CDC encourages people to wear insect repellent and use gloves when handling dead animals to help prevent infection.

Storms Bring 100 mph Winds to Pacific Northwest, More on the Way

A storm that hit the Pacific Northwest reportedly featured wind gusts that topped 100 mph.

The Weather Channel reported gusts of 107 mph in Squaw Peak, Oregon, and Mt. Lincoln, California, on Thursday. Sustained winds topped 70 mph in both locations, the report indicated.

There weren’t many reports of major damage, though The Weather Channel report indicated that the storm is believed to have caused a semi truck to flip over just outside of Reno, Nevada.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported there were about 5,000 power outages during the high winds, though those numbers were reportedly down to fewer than 200 two hours later.

KIRO, a television station in Washington, reported a few scattered power outages but added the local power company said fewer than 800 customers were affected by Thursday night.

The storm came ahead of another that’s expected to dump rain and snow on the region this weekend. The National Weather Service has issued storm warnings in areas off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and northern California, and the storm is expected to continue east.

The Weather Channel forecasts have the heaviest rainfall along the coast of Washington and northern Oregon. It also said that snow is possible in those regions with higher elevations.

The incoming storm is just one of several currently lined up in the northern Pacific, according to AccuWeather forecasts. They indicate a new storm is expected to make landfall every 1-3 days through the middle of the month, though they will all vary in strength and exact trajectory.

The AccuWeather models indicate that two feet of rain could fall on parts of Washington’s coastline through early next week, but most places are not expected to see nearly that amount.

A meteorologist told AccuWeather that the pattern of storms looks to be the work of El Nino, a weather pattern that is marked by part of the Pacific Ocean being warmer than usual. The change has a far-reaching ripple effect that brings atypical weather throughout the world.

A United Nations group has warned this year’s El Nino is looking to be one of the three strongest in the past 65 years and may interact with climate change to create unprecedented effects.

Foodborne Illness Responsible for 420,000 Annual Deaths

About 420,000 people die from eating tainted food every year and children are particularly impacted, according to estimates released this week by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The group, an arm of the United Nations, also estimates about 600 million people from around the globe get sick from eating food that has been contaminated by bacteria, toxins, chemicals and various other hazards every year. That’s just under a tenth of the world’s population.

The numbers were released after 10 years of research and published in the WHO’s Estimates of the Global Burden of Foodborne Diseases. The WHO says it is the first report of its kind.

Dr. Kazuaki Miyagishima, the director of the WHO’s Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses, said in a news release that the estimates were conservative and called for more data about the diseases to be made available. Before this research, the WHO said data were even more murky.

“But based on what we know now, it is apparent that the global burden of foodborne diseases is considerable, affecting people all over the world – particularly children under 5 years of age and people in low-income areas,” Miyagishima said in the news release.

According to the report, the WHO estimates about 125,000 of the people who die from eating contaminated food will be children less than 5 years old. Those kids account for 30 percent of food-illness-related deaths, despite representing just 9 percent of the global population.

The vast majority of people who get sick from eating contaminated food get a diarrhoeal disease, according to the report. The WHO says these kinds of diseases are responsible for 550 million illnesses and 230,000 fatalities every year, and often times contracted when people eat undercooked or raw food tainted with campylobacter, salmonella or E. Coli. Children represent a large percentage of this group, accounting for 220 million illnesses and 96,000 deaths.

But there are more than 200 diseases that can be contracted through consuming contaminated food, the WHO said. Other notable illnesses include typhoid fever, hepatitis A and tapeworm.

While some might think of food poisoning as a short-term illness, the WHO cautions diseases contracted through unsafe food can lead to severe illnesses like cancer and organ failure.

The WHO says the people most at risk from getting sick are those in lower-income countries. It found that countries in Southeast Asia and Africa have the highest illness and death rates, and said poor hygiene, a lack of sufficient food safety laws and inadequate food preparation and storage techniques there are all connected to the increased risk of getting a foodborne disease.

More than 150 million illnesses and 175,000 deaths occur in southeast Asia, the WHO estimates. In Africa, those numbers topped 91 million and 137,000, respectively.

In the Americas, the WHO estimates 77 million people get sick and 9,000 die from tainted food.

Great Britain Begins Airstrikes Against ISIS in Syria

Great Britain jets began carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State interests in Syria on Thursday, mere hours after lawmakers approved a plan to expand their military’s actions.

The fighter jets successfully attacked an ISIS-controlled oil field about 35 miles inside the country’s eastern border with Iraq, the country’s Ministry of Defense said in a news release.

The jets targeted six specific points within the Omar oil field, which is one of the Islamic State’s most significant holdings. It accounts for more than 10 percent of the potential oil income for the terrorist group, which is known as Daesh in some circles.

“Carefully selected elements of the oilfield infrastructure were targeted, ensuring the strikes will have a significant impact on Daesh’s ability to extract the oil to fund their terrorism,” Ministry of Defense officials said in the news release.

The ministry said the aircraft’s pilots ensured there were no civilians near the targets.

According to the BBC, the bombings came just a few hours after members of British parliament voted 397-223 to back their prime minister’s plan to approve carrying out airstrikes in Syria. Previously, Great Britain had only been executing airstrikes in Iraq. Those began last year.

But French leaders had asked for more help in the fight against ISIS after gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people during the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, Reuters reported.

Video Claims to Show ISIS Beheading Russian Spy

A new Internet video purports to show the Islamic State beheading a Russian spy.

Multiple news agencies couldn’t verify the authenticity of the video or the claims within it.

The video ends with a man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling before a man holding a knife.

The man with the knife threatens Russian citizens and the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, according to reports. He then cuts the throat of the man in the jumpsuit and decapitates him.

Earlier in the video, the man in the jumpsuit is shown speaking to the camera.

Russian television network RT says the man in the jumpsuit claims to be Magomed Khasiev, a 23-year-old from Grozny. The report says the man describes how he was recruited by Russia’s Federal Security Service and gathered intelligence during undercover missions in Iraq and Syria.

CNN reports the man with the knife expressed displeasure with Russia’s recent airstrikes against the Islamic State and warned Russian citizens of retaliatory violent acts against life and property.

RT reports the Russian government hadn’t indicated any of its citizens were being held by ISIS.

California Shooting Suspects Had Arsenal of Bombs and Ammunition

The suspects who allegedly killed 14 people and wounded 21 more during a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., on Wednesday had a dozen explosive devices in their home, police said.

San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan said at a Thursday news conference that “12 pipe bomb-type devices” were found at the home of the two deceased suspects, along with “hundreds of tools” that the two could have used to manufacture other explosive devices. That’s in addition to an unexploded pipe bomb that Burguan said police discovered at the scene of the shooting.

One day after the violent attack, the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, authorities were still working to piece together the precise set of circumstances that surrounded the carnage. But there were some details that emerged.

Burguan said the suspects, who police have identified as Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, allegedly sprayed between 65 and 75 bullets during a rampage at the Inland Regional Center before fleeing in a dark-colored SUV. They were later killed in a shootout with police.

The chief said police also discovered at least 4,500 additional rounds of ammunition at the home of the married couple, fueling speculation about what the suspects might have been planning. Police had not released an exact motive as of Thursday afternoon, though CNN quoted Burguan as saying that the two “were equipped … and they could have done another attack.”

According to numerous published reports, Farook was an employee of the San Bernardino County Public Health Department, which was hosting a holiday party at Inland Regional Center at the time of the shooting. Burguan is quoted in several reports as saying that Farook left the event angrily and abruptly, then he and his wife returned in tactical gear and began shooting.

Speaking from the Oval Office, President Barack Obama told reporters that the attackers might have had “mixed motives.” The Los Angeles Times quoted a federal law enforcement source as saying that a “combination of terrorism and workplace” was what investigators were focusing on, and they were trying to determine if the act was inspired by or directed by a terrorist group.

Multiple media organizations report that Farook was Muslim, though it’s not clear if he had been radicalized or had any links to religious extremist groups. Co-workers told The Los Angeles Times that he seldom discussed his religion at work, and had attended the same holiday event last year.

A relative told the New York Times the suspects met on an Internet dating site. Farook was born to Pakistani parents in Illinois and Malik was a Pakistani native living in Saudi Arabia. A relative told the newspaper that Farook flew to Saudi Arabia twice, including once to marry Malik. They had been married for about two years, according to an NPR report.

Citing family members, CNN reported that the suspects had a six-month-old daughter that they left at a grandmother’s house sometime on Wednesday. They claimed to be going to the doctor. Instead, police say they went to the party at about 11 a.m. and opened fire. Police believe they were the only two gunmen, and earlier reports of a potential third shooter were inaccurate.

Residents of the Redlands, California, neighborhood where the suspects lived spoke to the BBC and described it “peaceful” and home to “a bunch of innocent people.” The neighbors said there was no indication that the suspects were planning or capable of committing such a shooting.

It was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since a gunman killed 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.

VTech Hires Cyber Security Firm After Hack, Lawmakers Want Answers

VTech hired a company to help it with cyber security after a hacker gained access to the toy maker’s customer database — and private information about millions of adults and children.

The Hong Kong-based company announced Thursday that a team from FireEye is helping it with the fallout from the massive data breach, one of the largest documented consumer hacks.

VTech said in a news release that the United States-based company is helping it beef up its security after a November cyber attack in which a hacker accessed the manufacturer’s Learning Lodge portal, which allows customers to download a variety of content to VTech’s digital toys.

The company has said the data included information like email addresses and passwords but not credit card or social security numbers. The hacker who claimed responsibility for the attack has told Motherboard he also accessed pictures of children and logs of private chats between kids and their parents. Those were originally sent through a VTech service called Kid Connect, which allowed smartphone-using parents to exchange messages with children using VTech tablets.

The hacker has told Motherboard he has no plans to release the data.

VTech said about 4.8 million parents and 6.3 million children were affected by the hack. About 2.2 million parent accounts and 2.9 million child profiles are based in the United States, it said.

The company has suspended Learning Lodge and Kid Connect and several other websites in a precautionary measure, it said. VTech adds that it has reviewed the websites and taken steps to safeguard against future attacks, and hiring FireEye appears to be another one of those actions.

“We are deeply shocked by this orchestrated and sophisticated attack on our network. We regret that users of Learning Lodge, Kid Connect and PlanetVTech, some of whom are colleagues, friends and families, are also affected,” VTech Chairman and Group CEO Allan Wong said in a statement that accompanied the announcement. “We would like to offer our sincere apologies for any worry caused by this incident. We are taking all necessary steps to ensure that our users can continue to enjoy our products and services, safe in the knowledge that their data is secure.”

VTech said FireEye’s team will lead a forensic investigation into the attack and help review its customer data security protocols. The toy maker also it is “cooperating with law enforcement worldwide to investigate the incident,” but did not mention any specific agency’s involvement.

On Wednesday, two United States lawmakers wrote VTech and inquired about the kind of information it collects from children and how the toy manufacturer safeguards that data.

Specifically, Sen. Edward Markey (D.-Mass.) and Congressman Joe Barton (R.-Texas) want to know how VTech complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which governs the data websites can collect from children less than 13 years old.

PC Magazine reported the VTech hack was the fourth largest breach of consumer data.

India Death Toll Rises to 270 as Heavy Rains, Floods Continue

The 100-year rains that have brought massive flooding to the coastal Indian state of Tamil Nadu are now to blame for at least 270 deaths, according to the latest reports on Thursday morning.

Al-Jazeera reported the death toll increase, saying that 14 inches of rain fell on the state’s already-waterlogged capital city of Chennai on Tuesday. Forecasts called for more rainfall.

India traditionally receives significant rainfall during its monsoon season, but this year’s rains have been reported to be the heaviest in a century. Al-Jazeera reported Thursday that Tamil Nadu usually only receives less than two inches of rain during the entire month of December.

The flooding was particularly significant in Chennai, one of India’s most populous cities and a major player in the country’s automobile industry. Reuters reported Thursday that 3 million people lacked access to basic services as a result of the floods, with one resident telling the news agency some people had all of their belongings washed away and had gone days without food.

The city’s flooded airport has been closed through at least Sunday, the BBC reported, and some train services have also been suspended. The military was deployed to aid in the relief efforts.

Reuters reported Thursday that Indian military personnel rescued 2,000 Chennai residents and that the country’s prime minister, Narenda Modi, has promised $150 million in relief funding.

But Assocham, an Indian trade association, said in a news release that it believes the flood could cause a financial loss of $2.25 billion as Chennai “has come to a virtual standstill and is in the grip of fear and panic.” In addition to the crippling effects on the city’s auto industry, Assocham said the engineering, tourism, information technology and textile sectors were also badly hit.

Rescue efforts were reportedly continuing, as water levels had not receded. Apart from the heavy rainfall, experts told Reuters that drainage been hampered by faulty design and garbage buildup.

Earlier published reports indicated the rainfall drove at least 200,000 people from their homes, and some unaffected residents were using social media to invite the displaced into their houses.

Modi blamed the significant rainfall on climate change, Reuters reported, and some experts have also said that the El Nino weather pattern could have intensified the monsoon season.

United Nations officials have warned that this year’s El Nino is expected to be one of the three worst in the past 65 years, and may interact with climate change to create unprecedented effects.