News of the Force: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - Page 1

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Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - Today is Halloween

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U.S. warns of North Korean 'provocations'

    

    After months of rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang seems to have gone quiet. In the first 10 months of this year, North Korea launched 22 missiles and tested a hydrogen bomb, while threatening to fire missiles over the U.S. mainland.

    U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), has suggested that President Trump's tweets taking aim at North Korea are undermining diplomatic efforts regarding the country and its surrounding region.

    The U.S. should stop threatening North Korea and instead assure leader Kim Jong-Un that there are no plans to oust him, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said ahead of his meeting with President Donald Trump next month.

    A South Korean lawmaker says North Korea hacked Daewoo Shipbuilding and stole warship blueprints.

    And North Korea has blasted Britain's "wicked" claim that it was behind the hack attack on the National Health Service (NHS). Up to 300,000 computers in 150 countries were hit by "WannaCry," which seized systems and demanded payment in Bitcoin to return control to users.

 

U.S. forces capture Benghazi suspect in Libya

    

    U.S. forces have captured Mustafa al-Imam in Libya for his alleged role in the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the White House announced yesterday.

 

China considering three-year jail terms for those who disrespect its national anthem

    

    China's Parliament is considering criminal penalties for those who dis-respect the nation's national anthem, officials said yesterday.

 

Is Iraq now an Iranian colony?

    The recent takeover of Kirkuk by the Iranian-backed militias and the Iraqi army clearly illustrates that now Iran is calling the shots in every important decision of Iraq.

 

Catalan leader in Belgium, lawyer says

    

    Sacked Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has gone to Belgium, a lawyer he has hired there says. The lawyer, Paul Bekaert, said he had not gone into hiding and did not deny he might seek asylum.

    Spanish authorities moved aggressively yesterday to quash Catalonia's bid for independence as separatist leaders appeared to retreat just days after declaring their region a free nation.

 

Wife of Chechen accused of plot to assassinate Putin shot dead

    The Ukrainian wife of a Chechen man accused by Russia of plotting to kill President Vladimir Putin was shot dead outside Kiev yesterday in an attack that also wounded her husband, Ukrainian interior ministry officials said.

 

China's president promises reform

    

    Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised to open the country's economy wider during a meeting with American business leaders ahead of a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump.

 

U.S. pledges up to $60 million for security in the Sahel region

    The U.S.' support for the G5 force falls short of an expectation by France and others that Washington would back direct funding from the United Nations. The Trump administration says the money is to "stop the next reservoir of Islamic terrorists."

 

Kenya's president posts huge reelection win

    

    The Oct. 26th re-election is now showing incumbent President Uhuru M. Kenyatta with an insurmountable "commanding 98.32%" lead over his challengers (including the main one, Raila Odinga, who withdrew from the race).

    Nervous Kenyans waited today for the response of opposition leader Raila Odinga to President Kenyatta's victory in last week's election, which inflamed the deep ethnic tensions dividing the East African nation.

 

Eight killed as Israeli forces attack tunnel

By Lisa Levine, News of the Force Tel Aviv

    

    Eight people were killed when the Israeli military struck a tunnel leading into Israel from the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian armed groups have vowed to respond to Israel's attack on the tunnel in a southern town of the Gaza Strip late yesterday that left at least eight people dead and nine others wounded.

    And more and more, local Arabs are defying death threats and intimidation to tell the truth about Israel.

 

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    Couzin Gym's Thought for the Day: Midlife is when you go to the doctor and you realize you are now so old that you have to pay someone to look at you naked.

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U.S. Coast Guard

    

    Two women from Hawaii who say they were adrift in the Pacific for five months say they didn't use their emergency radio beacon because "there wasn't enough danger." The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy rescued them when they were 900 miles of course. Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, with their dogs, arrived yesterday at the White Beach Naval Facility in Japan aboard USS Ashland.

    A U.S. Coast Guard boat crew, which was preparing for a training session, has rescued a dog swimming alone from Lake Ponchartrain, La., and brought him back to a nearby Coast Guard station.

    The Coast Guard has rescued two people after their boat ran aground near

Barnegat Inlet, N.J.

    The U.S. Coast Guard has rescued two boaters and their dog from Haulover Inlet, near North Miami Beach, Fla.   

    A white Coast Guard cadet is being investigated for playing a racist song in the room of an African-American classmate, prompting a criminal investigation, the superintendent of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy said yesterday.

    The first Coast Guard cutter to be named after a graduate of The Citadel will soon be commissioned. It's to be named for Oliver Perry of the Class of 1928.

    The U.S. Coast Guard has wrapped up its seasonal operations in Kotzebue, Alaska.

    Coast Guard crews from Corpus Christi and South Padre Island, Texas, have rescued four fishermen from a sinking commercial fishing boat 5 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.

    And in Florida, the Sarasota Bradenton Ferry Co. is soliciting feedback from the community and future riders as it develops plans for the service to connect downtown Sarasota to Bradenton Beach by water. Although there is no exact launch date for the planned 149-passenger ferry, the company is eyeing early next year to roll out the first modern service of its kind in Sarasota Bay. Initial plans call for the ferry to depart Sarasota from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary's Flotilla 84 building, and boarding in Bradenton at the Bradenton Beach Pier. The hour-long trip would go back and forth every day from about 8 a.m. to 10:40 p.m. Fares could be between $12.50 and $22.50 per person.

 

Homeland insecurity

    

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is appealing a federal judge's order that would have freed Aurora, Colo., resident and Cuban immigrant Rene Lima-Martin, who was released by mistake from a federal immigration detention facility, further delaying his deportation.

    And the former emergency services director for Carbon County, Utah, who was accused of using federal grant money to buy hundreds of items for himself, has been sentenced for stealing from the DHS.

 

Crime stories

    

    Danish inventor Peter Madsen has admitted to dismembering the body of freelance journalist Kim Wall, the Danish police said yesterday, marking the latest shift in Madsen's explanation for how Wall's severed body sank to the sea floor off the coast of Copenhagen.

    The FBI has authorized for release all previously withheld materials in its JFK assassination files. Currently the limited redactions elate to individuals who provided information during the course of the investigation and whose lives may be at risk if they are publicly identified. Every effort is being made to lift the remaining redactions going forward as those personal safety concerns are balanced with the goal of maximum transparency, the FBI has said. The National Archives will release all remaining records on a rolling basis in the coming weeks, the agency said.

    The Tokyo police have arrested a man after finding "multiple" dismembered bodies in coolers in his apartment in a city southwest of the capital.

    A British police force has said it is investigating online sexual grooming after "inappropriate messages" were sent to children on Snapchat.

    The FBI has opened a preliminary inquiry into the $300 million Whitefish Energy Holdings contract secured by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, according to a source with knowledge of the inquiry.

    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today a ban on foreigners buying existing homes would begin in early 2018, but the restrictions would not apply to Australians.

    A former New Orleans, La., police officer has been sentenced to 25 years in prison over a series of sexual assaults on children.

    New accusers are extending the sexual assault claims against Harvey Weinstein back to the 1970s.

    A British police force has launched an investigation after it retweeted an illegal boxing stream that also showed pornography.

    Drunken assaults on Aspen, Colo., bus drivers are increasing. Authorities say it's simply not possible to police every bus, and a private security service now places two security officers on the buses.

    A Letterkenny, Pa., civil servant has pleaded guilty to 12 charges related to accessing information from social welfare files to pass on to private investigators.

    A mother in Trenton, N.J., has been fined $10,000 for illegally sending her children to another city's schools.

    The U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Tucson, Ariz., arrests the most dangerous fugitives from arresting an alleged child molester to rounding up a dangerous man who failed to appear in court on drug and weapons violations.

    The U.S. Marshals have helped the Kileen, Texas, Police arrest a wanted teenager, as Lazarus Israel Duaquon Bush, 17, was taken into custody.

    After years of waiting, the United States Marshals Museum (USMM) will "open" in Fort Smith, Ark., in the next five to six weeks - at least virtually.

    The U.S. Marshals Service's New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, along with special agents of ICE, have taken a wanted MS-13 gang member and convicted sex offender into custody in New York City.

    In Mahoning County, Ohio, the U.S. Marshals are looking for Miles Hogan, 53, who is charged with burglary and a state parole violation.

    And Paul Manafort and Rick Gates both pleaded not guilty in a federal court yesterday. They entered a packed courtroom for their arraignment, accompanied by U.S. Marshals, but were not restrained in any way.

 

U.S. Air Force

    

    The U.S. Air Force for the first time has publicly stated that it believes it is not barred from flying commercial payloads on its excess intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

    Air Force Major Gen. Gary Sayler has retired as the Adjutant General of Idaho and commanding general of the Idaho Army and Air National Guard after 45 years of service.

    The U.S. Air Force dispatched a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., to the Asia-Pacific region over the weekend. Both the U.S. and Russia have sent nuclear bombers there as tensions with North Korea soar.

    A pair of U.S. Air Force F-35A fighter jets flew to an air base in Japan's southern prefecture of Okinawa yesterday, marking the first deployment of the fighters to Japan.

    In a Powerpoint slide, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), the branch's chief investigative and protective service and a central organ of counterintelligence, actually authorized the Air Force to surveil U.S. citizens.

    The Air Force-Wyoming football game on Saturday, Nov. 11th, will be televised live on ESPNU and will kick off at 8:15 p.m., Mountain Time.

    Airmen with the 354th Fighter Wing at Eielson AFB, Alaska, have started Exercise Arctic Gold 18-1.

    Wyoming Air National Guard's 153rd Airlift Wing has deployed 100 of its airmen to the Middle East.

    In California, the March Field Air Museum is set to honor military veterans. Since its inception, the March Field Air Museum has welcomed active duty military, National Guard and reserve personnel free of charge, year-round.

    Airmen are preparing for "battle" at Exercise Southern Strike. According to the Mississippi Air National Guard, Southern Strike is based out of the Gulfport CRTC, but most range operations occur at Camp Shelby, Miss.

    A historic Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a centerpiece of U.S. air power during World War II, has flown in to visit Phoenix, Ariz.

    U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), is a pilot in the Air National Guard, which is a hard balance with his life in Congress.

    Soldiers from Ft. Bragg, N.C., recently trained at Laurinburg-Maxton Airport. At the same time, pilots from the Civil Air Patrol took turns working with local air traffic controllers operating out of a mobile tower.

    Civil Air Patrol national commander Major Gen. Mark Smith has announced the CAP has contracted with a company called "Verified Volunteers" to screen CAP members every five years for criminal convictions concurring with their membership renewal dates, beginning in 2019. Those who have already been screened with fingerprint cards will not have to submit them again however, the general said. Our look into "Verified Volunteers" gives a company address in Fort Collins, Colo., but it's business phone number has a New York City area code.     

    And Air Force Tech. Sgt. Nathan “Nate” E. Wall, 30, of Fulton, N.Y., died on Sunday, Oct. 22nd, while stationed with the 569th Security Forces Squadron at Vogelweh Air Base, near Kaiserslautern, Germany. A native of Fulton, he graduated from G. Ray Bodley High School's Class of 2005 and received his associate’s degree in criminal justice through the military. He was a member of the Oswego County Civil Air Patrol squadron prior to joining the Air Force in 2005. Calling hours will be held from 4 to 8 p.m., ET, on Friday, Nov. 3rd, at the Foster Funeral Home, Inc., at 910 Fay St. in Fulton, N.Y. Services will be at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4th, at the Emmanuel Baptist Bible Church at 15564 State Route 104, in Martville, N.Y., with burial with full military honors at the Mount Adnah Cemetery at 706 E. Broadway in Fulton.

 

NOAA news

    

    In reversing course, NOAA Fisheries has said it will allow anglers in the South Atlantic to catch red snapper for the first time in three years.

    An animation of imagery from NOAA's GOES East satellite shows the development, movement and demise of Tropical Storm Philippe.

    And NOAA's GOES East satellite has provided an image of Post-Tropical Cyclone Selma as it dissipated near the border of El Salvador and Honduras.

 

U.S. Public Health Service

    

    President Trump's opioid panel will recommend nationwide drug courts and tightened measures for prescriptions. The commission will recommend a system for distributing federal funding and health care workers from the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps will administer treatment and care in areas with above-average opioid use.

    And if you need to be tested for rabies, your physician will decide whether you will need to receive the post-exposure treatment recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service.

 

UFO news

    

    There's spooky goings-on in the skies above Bradford, England, after a photographer captured a group of mysterious object seemingly flying in front of the moon. The image was taken in Queensbury by Carl Conway at 7:05 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29th. "I just took this photo and noticed something flying across the moon. There are six of them apparently flying in formation in the bottom left of the picture," Conway said.

 

 

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