Author Archives: Pat Turnbaugh

U.S. Keeping Close Watch on Saudi Arabia-Iran Situation

The fallout from Saudi Arabia’s controversial execution of a prominent religious leader continued to draw the attention of United States officials on Tuesday, according to CNN.

A senior official within the State Department told the network that Secretary of State John Kerry was “very concerned with the direction this thing is going,” adding the fact that several Islamic nations had cut diplomatic ties with each other in recent days was “very unsettling” to Kerry.

The situation has devolved rapidly since Saudi Arabia’s state-run media agency announced Saturday that it had executed Nimr al-Nimr, who the U.S. State Department characterized as a Shia religious leader, and 46 others for what it called “terrorist crimes.” Most of Saudi Arabia follows Sunni Islam, a different branch than the one Nimr practiced, and human rights group Amnesty International said Nimr was convicted following a “political and grossly unfair trial.”

In Iran, where most people follow the branch of Islam that Nimr practiced, the news wasn’t received well. CNN reported that protesters responded by attacking the Saudi Arabian embassy, and the situation has only worsened from there as Islamic nations took sides in the dispute and began imposing sanctions and scaled back or altogether eliminated diplomatic conversations.

According to CNN, Kerry was urging Saudi Arabia and Iran to resolve the situation, which was threatening efforts to combat the Islamic State and could potentially have broader impacts.

Obama Announces New Gun Control Measures, Including Background Check Changes

President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled new measures that would govern gun sales and safety in the United States, actions he said are geared toward reducing gun violence by preventing the weapons from ending up in the hands of people who may use them nefariously.

Speaking in a televised address from the East Room of the White House, Obama listed mass shootings while detailing an executive order he said were designed to close loopholes in existing laws and make it tougher for people to obtain the weapons used in the deadly rampages.

The new measures would enhance the vetting process, requiring anyone who is “in the business of selling firearms” to obtain a selling license and conduct background checks. That’s not always the case under the current system, which has more lenient rules for gun-show and online sales.

“We know that we can’t stop every act of violence,” Obama conceded. “But what if we tried to stop even one?”

Opponents and gun rights activists immediately spoke out against Obama’s order, saying the president’s actions can not usurp American’s constitutional right to bear arms. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) issued a statement in which he said the president’s “words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty,” and said there was “no doubt” that someone would challenge the directive, which doesn’t need Congressional approval, in court.

In his address, Obama said the order was not an infringement of the Second Amendment and noted Americans were guaranteed additional rights and freedoms that gun violence was hampering, noting guns contribute to the deaths of 30,000 Americans every year. The president expressed a need to balance those other freedoms and rights with the right to bear arms.

He specifically mentioned the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“Those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara and from high schoolers at Columbine and from first-graders in Newtown,” Obama said, referencing campus shootings at Virginia Tech, UC Santa Barbara, Columbine High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School. “And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun. Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.”

Obama also referenced mass shootings at a military facility in Fort Hood, Texas, a church in Charleston, South Carolina, the Washington Navy Yard, a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, and a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, on a list that included “too many” instances of gun violence. The president said it was time “not to debate the last shooting, but do something to try to prevent the next one.”

Several Democrats lauded the president’s efforts. They include former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured during a mass shooting in Tuscon five years ago this week. She attended the address and tweeted Obama’s “responsible actions … will save lives.”

However, the National Rifle Association issued a statement saying that none of Obama’s proposals would have stopped any of the “horrific events he mentioned” during his speech.

“Once again, President Obama has chosen to engage in political rhetoric, instead of offering meaningful solutions to our nation’s pressing problems,” Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the association’s Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement. “Today’s event also represents an ongoing attempt to distract attention away from his lack of a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe from terrorist attack. The American people do not need more emotional, condescending lectures that are completely devoid of facts.”

The main point of Obama’s executive order is undoubtedly reforming background checks.

Those checks have already prevented 2 million guns from being sold to people who cannot legally purchase them, the White House said in a news release, and the executive order aims to bolster the strength and overall efficiency of the system. The FBI is planning to hire 230 additional employees to process the 63,000 background check requests it receives every day, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms is working to finalize rules that would prevent people from circumventing the background check requirements for particularly dangerous guns.

The order also calls for better enforcement of existing gun laws, and Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2017 includes funding that would allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms to hire 200 additional agents and investigators. The president is also pushing for better gun safety technology, directing officials with the Homeland Security, Justice and Defense departments to help study how to prevent guns from firing accidentally, and proposing $500 million for nationwide improvements to mental health treatment.

Israel Retaliates After Hezbollah Bombs Army Vehicles

Israel launched a military response after Islamic militants bombed one of its army convoys on Monday, reports indicate.

According to the BBC, Israel’s artillery attack against the Lebanese village of Wazzani was a retaliatory measure after the Islamic militant group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for attacking Israeli vehicles that were patrolling contested territory near the Lebanon border.

Hezbollah’s bombing came in the wake of the death of one of its key members, the BBC reported, and the Lebanon-based group had previously said it would seek to avenge Samir Kuntar’s death by attacking Israel.

Different Strain of Swine Flu Could Lead to New Pandemic, Study Shows

A strain of flu that has been circulating in pigs for decades is now capable of sickening humans and could cause to a pandemic similar to the one swine flu caused in 2009, a new study found.

A team of researchers from China and Japan recently found that a type of swine flu virus called EAH1N1 is now capable of sickening humans on a global scale, and published their discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers wrote that the virus has been found in pigs since 1979, but “long-term evolution” in the animals have changed the virus and it’s now capable of not just making humans sick, but efficiently spreading between them.

The researchers warned EAH1N1 is now able “to cause a human influenza pandemic.” Their research indicated that several countries have already reported human cases of the illness.

The study “suggests that immediate action is needed” to prevent humans from getting the EAH1N1 virus, researchers wrote in the article’s summary, because of how it can spread and the fact that none of the humans they tested had developed antibodies for one particular flu strain.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that the 2009 swine flu outbreak, caused by the different H1N1 virus, killed anywhere between 151,700 and 575,400 people.

The World Health Organization says pigs have been known to generate new flu viruses because they are capable of getting infected by several different animals and humans. The viruses blend together in pigs, creating new strains that can make humans sicker than the original viruses.

New Forecast Provides Glimpse Into El Niño’s Potential U.S. Impacts

A new forecast provides an in-depth look at the weather conditions that a particularly powerful El Niño is expected to bring to the continental United States over the next three months.

The predictions were recently released by WSI, which has corporate connections to The Weather Channel. The channel analyzed the three-month outlook on its website on Monday.

El Niño is a weather pattern that occurs when part of the Pacific Ocean is warmer than usual, bringing atypical and sometimes extreme weather across the world. Many scientists, including those with NASA and World Meteorological Organization, have publicly said this year’s El Niño is shaping up to be one of the strongest instances of the pattern in the past 65 years, with NASA saying last week it may exceed the strength of the 1997-98 pattern billed as the worst on record.

According to The Weather Channel, the southern United States is generally expected to see temperatures below those typical for this time of year, while the northern states should see hotter-than-usual temperatures. The forecast indicates there may be exceptions to these tendencies, including a stretch this month where temperatures may see a more East-West divide.

El Niño is also known to impact precipitation totals.

Citing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which researches El Niño and issues its own predictions, The Weather Channel reported states on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, as well as large chunks of the Great Plains and Southwest, should see above-average precipitation totals this winter. On the other hand, the report indicates states in the Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest, as well as those bordering Canada, may see less rain and snow than usual.

NASA warned last week that the United States likely has yet to see the full brunt of this El Niño, which has already been blamed for several extreme storms across the globe. El Niños also generate droughts in some parts and floods in others, disrupting economies and food supplies.

The forecast analyzed by The Weather Channel focused on general trends, not specific storms.

The NOAA is expected to release its next El Niño update on January 14.

Armed Militia Takes Over Oregon Wildlife Refuge

A wildlife sanctuary in rural Oregon is closed indefinitely after protesters took control of the facility.

A posting on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s website says “an unknown number of armed individuals have broken into and occupied” the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which is located approximately 30 miles southeast of Burns, Oregon, in the state’s southeast quadrant.

The service says there weren’t any employees in the refuge when it was overtaken.

According to The Oregonian, the group of about 20 military began occupying the refuge some on Saturday to protest how the government handled criminal proceedings against two ranchers.

In October, Dwight Lincoln Hammond and his son, Steven Dwight Hammond, received five-year prison sentences for allegedly setting fires on lands the Bureau of Land Management had leased to them for cattle grazing, the Department of Justice said in news release at the time. The Hammonds originally got a more lenient sentence after arguing the mandatory minimum of five years was unconstitutional, but an appeals court ultimately ruled the five-year term fit the crime, threw out their original punishments and resentenced them to the mandatory minimum.

The Hammonds were due to report to prison on Monday, according to The Oregonian, but that hasn’t stopped the militants from staging their protest.

CNN reported the group’s leader, Ammon Bundy, told the network they will not leave the land until the government meets their demands, and has threatened to use force in a self-defense capacity if authorities used force against them.

If the name sounds familiar, it could be because anti-government protests run in the family.

Bundy is the son of Cliven Bundy, who staged a widely publicized armed standoff with the federal government over land rights issues in Nevada in 2014. According to The Oregonian, attorneys for the Hammonds have said that Ammon Bundy does represent their clients.

Saudi Arabian Mass Execution Spurs International Outrage

A recent mass execution in Saudi Arabia has spurred international backlash, drawing condemnations from human rights advocates and United States officials while reportedly driving a wedge in diplomatic relations between the kingdom and other Islamic nations.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported that the country had killed 47 people that had been convicted of “terrorist crimes” on Saturday. Among them, according to the report, was Nimr al-Nimr, who the U.S. State Department characterized as an important leader in the Islamic community. His reported execution drew immediate rebuke from Amnesty International, one of the most vocal critics of the death penalty and Saudi Arabia’s seemingly unrelenting use of it.

“Saudi Arabia’s authorities have indicated that the executions were carried out to fight terror and safeguard security.” Philip Luther, the director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said in a statement. “However, the killing of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in particular suggests they are also using the death penalty in the name of counter-terror to settle scores and crush dissidents.”

Most of Saudi Arabia aligns with Sunni Islam, a branch that has different teachings than Shia Islam, creating some religious tension. Nimr was a leader in the Shiite minority, Amnesty said.

The group indicated Nimr had criticized Saudi Arabia’s government and was originally arrested for political protests in a traditionally Shiite region in 2011. Amnesty called his trial “political and grossly unfair,” and Luther said executing Nimr and 46 others when there were doubts about the fairness of the country’s criminal proceedings “a monstrous and irreversible injustice.”

It’s not the first time Amnesty has criticized Saudi Arabia’s executions. The group has previously said Saudi Arabia killed at least 151 people in the first 11 months of 2015, its highest such total in 20 years, and Amnesty isn’t alone in speaking out against the country’s use of the death penalty.

“We have previously expressed our concerns about the legal process in Saudi Arabia and have frequently raised these concerns at high levels of the Saudi Government,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement released Saturday. “We reaffirm our calls on the Government of Saudi Arabia to respect and protect human rights, and to ensure fair and transparent judicial proceedings in all cases.”

Kirby said the United States was “particularly concerned” about the death of Nimr.

In the statement, Kirby said the religious leader’s execution “risks exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced. In this context, we reiterate the need for leaders throughout the region to redouble efforts aimed at de-escalating regional tensions.”

But those calls appeared to be falling on deaf ears.

CNN reported a group of protesters in Iran, which predominantly follows Shia Islam, waged an attack against the Saudi Arabian embassy following the execution. That attack led to Saudi Arabia and three other Muslim nations taking diplomatic actions against Iran, CNN reported.

On Monday, Kirby told a news briefing that the State Department condemned the attack on the embassy and encouraged the countries continue to seek diplomatic solutions to the conflicts.

“We continue to believe that diplomatic engagement and direct conversations are essential to work through differences,” Kirby told reporters. “Increased friction runs counter to the interests of all those in the international community who support moderation, peace and stability.”

CDC Issues Travel Notice After Zika Virus Arrives in Puerto Rico

Health officials are warning would-be travelers about the spread of a mosquito-borne illness that might be causing a growing number of children to be born with smaller-than-usual heads.

Late last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel notice for Puerto Rico after the island reported its first locally contracted case of the virus. The advisory encourages travelers to take proactive steps to prevent mosquito bites, like wearing insect repellant and long clothing. The CDC has issued similar warnings for Mexico, Central America and South America, as several other countries have said the virus has sickened humans there.

Zika often causes people to experience fever, joint pain, rashes and red eyes for up to a week, the CDC says, but the illness seldom results in hospitalization. However, the Brazilian Ministry of Health recently said it was investigating about 3,000 cases of microcephaly, a neurological disorder in which children are born with unusually small heads and underdeveloped brains.

Before this year, the ministry said it usually saw about 150-170 annual cases of microcephaly. But since the Zika virus arrived in May, the ministry said the number of suspected cases have surged to 2,975. Authorities are currently examining if there’s a conclusive link between the two.

The CDC said test results have shown that some Brazilian babies with microcephaly were infected with Zika, but other babies developed microcephaly and tested negative for the virus. There are other possible causes for the defect, so it will take some time to determine the culprit. Still, the CDC says woman who are pregnant should be extra careful to prevent mosquito bites.

There isn’t any vaccine that can prevent the virus or any medicine that can treat it, according to the CDC. Because the mosquitos that transmit Zika live all across the planet, the organization says it’s likely that the virus could spread to new regions where illnesses have yet to be reported.

The virus can remain in the bloodstreams of infected individuals for about a week, according to the CDC, during which time it’s extra important to avoid mosquito bites to prevent transmission. While the organization reports no one has acquired Zika in the United States, there has been at least one instance where a traveler got sick while visiting a foreign country and returned home.

Magnitude 6.7 Earthquake Leads to Death, Destruction in India, Bangladesh

An early-morning earthquake rattled India and the neighboring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar on Monday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The USGS reported the magnitude 6.7 quake was first felt at 4:35 a.m. local time on Monday. It was centered about 18 miles west of Impahl, the capital of the Indian province of Manipur.

The quake caused the deaths of at least 11 people in India and Bangladesh, Reuters reported, and injured approximately 190 more. According to Reuters, the earthquake knocked down portions of buildings in Impahl, while shaking was felt in a Myanmar city about 730 miles away.

The USGS said the region is known for seismic activity, and 19 magnitude 6.0-plus earthquakes have occurred within a 150-mile radius of Monday’s ground-shaker within the past 100 years. Most of the people in the region live in buildings prone to earthquake damage, the USGS said.

Reuters reported the latest quake knocked out power and phone lines, complicating rescue efforts.

Threat of Major Flooding Shifts Down Mississippi River

Several communities in the central United States were coping with major flooding on Monday morning as the same deadly floodwaters that devastated parts of Missouri moved downstream.

The National Weather Service issued flood warnings all along the lower Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers as rising waters threatened countless homes and businesses. In certain communities, waters were expected to continue to climb throughout the month before cresting.

One week after a powerful winter storm dumped 6 to 12 inches of rain across much of the region, waters had yet to fully recede from some of the communities they impacted most.

In greater St. Louis, where often-historic flooding forced evacuations and shut down a bustling stretch of Interstate 44, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said minor flooding was still occurring along parts of the Meramec and Mississippi rivers. Water levels had receded from their record heights in the Missouri communities of Valley Park and Arnold, according to the NOAA, though the flooding had yet to fully stop as of Monday. It could be Saturday before the Meramec finally dropped below flood stage in Arnold., the NOAA said.

Over the weekend, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s announced the federal government approved his request to expedite relief efforts after “fast-rising flood water inundated several thousands homes and business and left behind a trail of destruction, debris and refuse” in greater St. Louis, according to a news release. The governor, who had declared a state of emergency and mobilized the National Guard, said the federal aid would help facilitate the cleanup and recovery process.

As some communities began to clean up, others remained partially underwater.

The NOAA reported there was major flooding occurring at 25 river gauges on Monday morning, while another 197 were experiencing minor or moderate flooding. Almost all of them were in the Mississippi River watershed, with downstream communities at risk of water levels rising further.

Major flooding was already occurring in Cape Girardeau, Missouri and the Illinois communities of Thebes and Chester, the NOAA said, and it could be several days before the flooding reduces in severity. According to Cape Girardeau’s official blog, about 25 homes in the city were either flooded or rendered inaccessible by floodwaters that had closed several of the city’s roads.

As the waters left Missouri, they were expected to arrive in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

In Natchez, Mississippi, some 580 miles south of St. Louis, the NOAA reported the Mississippi River was already at 49.4 feet, causing minor flooding. The river was expected to rise at least 10 more feet before peaking at 60 feet on January 17, which would spur major flooding issues.

Other areas at risk of major flooding include the Mississippi communities of Vicksburg and Greenville and Arkansas City, Arkansas, according to NOAA projections. The governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant, preemptively declared a state of emergency amid the threat of floods.

“We are told this flood will be just below the historic record flood of 2011,” Bryant said in a news release. “Our citizens have time to prepare and should begin taking actions now.”

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson’s office said the governor has already declared 38 of the state’s 75 counties disaster areas as a result of storm and flooding damage, and noted the governor could add more counties to the list if the damage calls for the list to be expanded.

The Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness has said it would monitor levels of the Red and Mississippi rivers and assist any affected communities.