Saturday,
October 17, 2015 - Today is the International Day for the
Eradication of Poverty
Hungary closes border with
Croatia
Accused of a heavy-handed response to
the thousands of migrants and refugees crossing over its borders in recent
months, Hungary closed its border with Croatia at midnight last
night.
New IS branch claims shootings in Saudi
Arabia
A previously unheard of Islamic State
group branch with links to Bahrain has purportedly claimed responsibility for a
deadly shooting yesterday targeting Shiite worshippers in eastern Saudi Arabia.
Five people were killed.
Cuba is intervening in Syria to help
Russia
By Lisa Levine, News of the Force Tel
Aviv
Reports that Cuban forces are now
fighting in Syria follow a long history of the Castro brothers working closely
with their patrons in Moscow.
Turkey said its warplanes shot down a
drone yesterday near its border with Syria, underscoring heightened hostility in
the region's increasingly crowded airspace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says
his country's air campaign backing a Syrian government offensive has "killed
hundreds."
Palestinians set fire to a Jewish holy
shrine in the West Bank yesterday morning, and clashes between Palestinians and
the Israeli military flared throughout the day after the militant Islamist group
Hamas called for a "day of rage."
Government officials say two
Palestinians who were shot while trying to stab Israelis in Jerusalem and the
West Bank have died of their wounds. And police spokeswoman Luba Samri says
officers approached a Palestinian who then pulled out a knife and tried to stab
them. The officers opened fire and seriously wounded the assailant.
And the current violence here has been
characterized by two things: An unbridled bloodlust among an entire brainwashed
generation of Palestinian Arabs and an unprecedented level of faulty and biased
media coverage. One example of that media bias came from the BBC, which said on
its website, "Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two." What the
BBC didn't say is that the two people killed were Jewish Israeli citizens, and
the Palestinian was shot dead because he was the murderer.
Cuzin Jim's Thought for
the Day: You can't fix stupid, but you can vote it
out.
U.S. Army
A 75-year-old U.S. Army veteran who
fought off a knife-wielding man who was threatening to kill children at an
Illinois library says training he received nearly five decades ago helped him in
the scuffle. James Vernon was teaching a chess class with 16
children at the Morton Public Library, in Morton, Illinois, when
authorities say 19-year-old Dustin Brown entered the room with two knives.
According to a court affidavit, Brown told police afterward that he "failed in
his mission to kill everyone." "He actually ran into the
room yelling, 'I'm going to kill some people!' He was holding two knives,"
Vernon said. Vernon described the knives as "hunting types" with "fixed blades
about 5 inches" long. Vernon, a retired
Caterpillar, Inc., employee, said he remembered the knife-fight training the
Army had given him. Despite his cuts, Vernon contended he won his "90 seconds of
combat" with Brown, "but I felt like I lost the war." He suffered two cut
arteries and a tendon in his left hand as he blocked Brown's knife swipe.
He said he first tried to calm Brown and deflect his
attention from the children attending his class. "I tried to
talk to him. I tried to settle him down," he said. "I didn't, but I did deflect
his attention" from the children "and calmed him a bit. I asked him if he was
from Morton, did he go to high school. I asked what his problem was. He said his
life sucks." Vernon said the man backed away as he got
closer to him, but he was able to put himself between Brown and the room's door,
with the children hiding under the tables behind him. "I
gave them the cue to get the heck out of there, and, boy, they did that!" Vernon
said. "Quick, like rabbits." Vernon said Brown responded by
slashing him with a knife. Vernon, saying he was "bleeding
pretty good" at the time, held the suspect until a library employee arrived to
remove the knives, and kept the man pinned until police officers and paramedics
arrived. Brown, who was free on child pornography charges,
is being held on $800,000 bond on charges of attempted murder, armed violence
and aggravated battery. It wasn't immediately known whether Brown has a lawyer
who could comment on his behalf.
Lt. Col. Kevin Ferreira, an Iraq War
veteran and New York Army National Guard aviation officer took command of the
3rd Battalion, 142nd Assault Helicopter Regiment, a UH-60 Blackhawk battalion,
from Lt. Col. Jeffrey Baker at Camp Smith today. The
battalion has elements at McArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma and at Albany
International Airport.
A Texas Army National Guard UH-60
Black Hawk out of the Austin Army Aviation Facility is helping to fight
wildfires threatening homes and property near Bastrop, Texas.
Lt. Col. Jason Souza, a veteran of the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, took command of the New York Army National Guard's
501st Ordnance Battalion, a headquarters unit that controls up to five explosive
ordnance disposal companies, today during a ceremony at the Armed Forces
Readiness Center in Scotia-Glenville.
The Idaho Army National Guard is
proposing fewer, but larger armories across the state. Col. Farin Schwartz
says the Guard won't know whether they can secure funding for the project for at
least another year.
Eighteen members of the Wyoming Army
National Guard's 5th Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment, left home this morning
for a training mission prior to their deployment to
Afghanistan.
The remains of a Civil War soldier
will be reburied in a southwest Missouri cemetery four years after they were
illegally removed from a national battlefield site. The soldier’s
bones, which were to be interred today at the Springfield National Cemetery,
were collected in 2011 as Coy Matthew Hamilton was canoeing through the Wilson’s
Creek National Battlefield site near Springfield. Prosecutors said Hamilton, who
was looking for artifacts after a storm, saw a bone sticking out of an
embankment and started digging. About 10 days later, he turned the bones over to
the National Park Service. Hamilton agreed in 2012 to pay
$5,351 in restitution to the park service and perform 60 hours of community
service to avoid prosecution. Wilson’s Creek Superintendent Ted Hillmer said
removing any artifacts from a national park is forbidden. Hillmer said the burial ceremony will feature an honor guard made up of
Union and Confederate volunteers and re-enactors, along with three volleys of
musket fire and a cannon firing. "We want to show honor and
respect for the remains that were found here," Hillmer said. "To me, this is
very unique because we don’t bury remains of Civil War soldiers in this era."
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs by law considers all
Civil War service members from both sides to be U.S. veterans. It said it’s
not known whether the remains belonged to a Union or Confederate soldier, but
the department said the park service was "confident" that the bones are
associated with the 1861 clash at Wilson’s Creek, which was the first major
Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River. Hillmer said a number of
bone buttons, typical of what a cavalry unit would have worn, were found in the
area where the remains were removed. The cemetery where the
bones will be reburied contains graves of Union and Confederate casualties from
the Battle of Wilson’s Creek and other battles in the area. Missouri, which
entered the Union as a slave state but didn't secede, was the scene of frequent
battles and skirmishes, with residents fighting for both
sides.
And actor Shia LeBeouf drunkenly told
an Austin, Texas, police officer that he was in the Army National Guard in an
attempt at being let off the hook on a DUI charge.
President Obama signs new legislation into
law
Yesterday, the President signed into
law:
- H.R. 2835, the "Border Jobs for Veterans Act of 2015,"
which requires the Department of Homeland Security to: consider the expedited
hiring of qualified veterans who have the ability to perform the functions of
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers; and enhance its efforts to recruit
members of the armed forces who are separating from military service to serve as
CBP officers;
- S. 986, the "Albuquerque Indian School Land Transfer
Act," which directs the Secretary of the Interior to take into trust four
parcels of federal land in Albuquerque, N.M., for the benefit of 19 Indian
Pueblos;
- S. 1300, the "Adoptive Family Relief Act," which
authorizes U.S. consular officers to waive immigrant visa renewal or replacement
fees for an immigrant child that is adopted by U.S. citizens if the child was
unable to use the original visa during its period of validity as a direct result
of extraordinary circumstances that were beyond the control of the child or the
parents, including the denial of an exit permit;
and,
- S. 2078, the "U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2015," which reauthorizes and amends the U.S.
Commission on International Religious
Freedom.
U.S. Coast Guard news
The controversial LNG terminal
development at the U.S. East Coast Port Ambrose is making progress after gaining
support from the Coast
Guard.
The U.S. Coast Guard is naming its newest
cutter for a sailor from San Antonio, Texas. Juanita Segovia, 84, lost her son,
Heriberto Hernandez, in combat in Vietnam. He was the first member of the U.S.
Coast Guard to die in that
war.
Crew members aboard USCGC Isaac Mayo
repatriated 57 Cuban migrants back to their home country
yesterday.
Peter Eident will address officer candidates
to honor a crew of shipwrecked sailors at 10 a.m., ET, on Oct. 20 at the
U.S. Coast Guard Academy's
chapel.
The Vermilion Parish, La., Sheriff's
Water Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard are searching for two missing crew members
after a boat explosion on Thursday. The U.S. Coast Guard described the boat as a
30-foot deck boat, which was near a rig owned by the Texas Petroleum Investment
Co.
Three men on a recreational boat had to be
rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard after their boat began taking on water
off Carlsbad, Calif., near San
Diego.
And the U.S. Coast Guard has launched a
search near the Bristol Bay community of Ugashik, Alaska, after a boater
failed to return
home.
News from the U.S. Marshals Service
This week’s "Fugitive of the Week," Adam John
Little, was arrested yesterday by the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in
a Denmark, Maine, apartment. Little was wanted for parole violations in the
state of New Hampshire. Little was on parole due to his original conviction and
sentence for criminal threatening and
intimidation.
The U.S. Marshals’ Southern Ohio Fugitive
Apprehension Strike Team arrested fugitive Ronald Schwarm in
Cincinnati yesterday on an outstanding warrant from the Hamilton
County Common Pleas Court, in Cincinnati, Ohio, on an indictment charging him
with two counts of rape, two counts of sexual battery and one count of gross
sexual
imposition.
Three Smith County fugitives wanted by the
U.S. Marshals Joint East Texas Fugitive Task Force were located and arrested by
Mexico’s National Institute of Migration in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico. James
Mitchell Zachary, Brandy Yvette Rucker, and Dawn Rae Barron were given a one way
flight, and escorted by the Mexican Federal Police, to Houston, Texas, to be
delivered to the U.S.
Marshals.
And U.S. Marshals from the Northern District
of Georgia's Special Response Team, with the assistance of Customs and Border
Protection (CBP), the Georgia State Patrol, the Atlanta Police Department, SWAT,
the Air and Traffic unit, and patrol, as well as the Federal Protective Service
(FPS) Police, transported alleged drug lord Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez and Carlos
Montemayor to U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta on Friday, Oct.
9.
American Red Cross
Did you know? Staff and volunteers with the
American Red Cross are dispatched to home fires and other emergencies, every
eight
minutes.
The American Red Cross and the American Heart
Association have jointly announced new first air
guidelines.
The Mosaic Co., in Plymouth, Minn., has
announced a $25,000 contribution to the American Red Cross to aid its flood
relief mission in South
Carolina.
The American Red Cross has opened two
shelters for Palmdale, La.-area residents displaced from their homes by a debris
flow of mud and
rocks.
Students looking to give back this holiday
season can become eligible to win a scholarship from the American Red Cross by
hosting a blood
drive.
And the American Red Cross of Kern County,
Calif., has opened shelters in Tehachapi and Mojave to help the victim's of
a major
mudslide.
UFO news
Washington state can claim what's regarded as
the "first of the modern era of UFO sightings" after, in 1947, pilot
Kenneth Arnold spotted a formation of flying saucers while flying near Mt.
Rainier.
Page 1