Upcoming Anniversary: October 1st Will Mark 18 Years of No Global Warming

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Photo Credit: CATOAccording to the datasets used last year, October 1st will mark the 18th year of “no significant warming trend in surface average temperature,” says Patrick Michaels, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science.

And even if the current 18-year trend were to end, it would still take nearly 25 years for average global temperature figures to reflect the change, said Michaels, who has a Ph.D. in ecological climatology and spent three decades as a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia.

Sooner or later, even Al Gore and the numerous scientists, academics and politicians who agree with him that “Earth has a fever” will have to admit that their climate models predicting catastrophic global warming were off by a long shot, said Michaels, who was also a contributing editor to the United Nations’ second Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

“It has to be admitted eventually that too much warming was forecast too fast. That just has to happen. You can’t go on and on and on,” he told CNSNews.com.

“If the surface temperature resumed the warming rate that we observed from, say 1977 through 1998, we would still go close to a quarter of a century without significant net warming because there’s such a long flat period built into the record now. “

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Strong Earthquake Rattles Large Swath of Alaska

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Photo Credit: Arthur ChapmanA powerful earthquake shook a large swath of Alaska on Thursday morning, knocking things off shelves and causing people to take cover but bringing no immediate reports of major damage.

The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, and hit at 9:51 a.m. The epicenter was about 80 miles northwest of the state’s largest city, where it was strongly felt and lingered for at least a minute, the Alaska Earthquake Center said.

Staffers at the Nesbett Courthouse in downtown Anchorage felt the shaking in their office on the top floor of the six-story building.

“My computer tower fell off my desk,” said judicial assistant Ellen Bozzini. Everyone stood in doorways until an evacuation was ordered, then they took the stairs outside where they waited for about 20 minutes before being allowed back in.

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Iran’s President: Calling Islamic State Islamic is Part of Western ‘Islamophobic Project’

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Photo Credit: AP / Jason DeCrowIranian President Hasan Rouhani accused Western media Thursday of deliberately trying to vilify Islam by identifying Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists as Muslims.

“I am astonished that these murderous groups call themselves Islamic,” he said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly devoted largely to terrorism and extremism. “What is more astonishing is that the Western media, in line with them, repeats this false claim, which provokes the hatred of all Muslims.”

Muslims, he added, “see this defamation as a part of an Islamophobic project.”

While rejecting any link between his religion and terrorism, Rouhani instead blamed factors like foreign conspiracies, poverty and injustice.

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Retiring Senator Tom Coburn: Congress Lied To America About Spending

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerOklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said Thursday that Congress lied to the American people about the amount of spending placed in the recent continuing resolution passed by Congress and signed by President Obama last week.

Coburn said that lawmakers from both parties, including Republican House Speaker John Boehner, lied about the amount of spending in the resolution because it far exceeds the amount promised in the two-year federal budget bill passed at the end of 2013.

Coburn, who is retiring when his term is up after the 2016 elections, cut loose in an interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.

“The reason Americans have such poor view of Washington is because we’re dishonest with the American public in what we do,” Coburn told Ingraham. “In the continuing resolution […] we’re $47 billion above what we said we would be [in the Ryan-Murray bill].”

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Harvard Gives Student Full Ride After He Tells Them He's Illegal Immigrant

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Photo Credit: Reuters When Dario Guerrero, an illegal immigrant who found out about his status in high school, told Harvard that he was in the country illegally, the school encouraged him to apply–and gave him a full scholarship after he was accepted.

Writing in the Washington Post, Guerrero, who is currently a junior at the university, said after an MIT official recommended that he not apply to the school during a trip to visit college, he “left the office in a daze” because MIT had been his dream school. He started walking down Massachusetts Avenue” and, “without really planning it, I found myself in the middle of Harvard.” A Harvard admissions officer told him, “If you are admitted to Harvard College, we will meet your full financial need without regard to your legal status.”

He eventually got in, and “they gave me a full ride. This meant I wouldn’t have to worry about student loans or quarterly tuition payments; that I always had a place to stay away from home; that I could travel every semester, on Harvard’s dime, back to California; that my parents would never have to worry whether I’d finish school. Those are luxuries few people, documented or not, ever have.”

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ISIS Plotting Subway Attacks in New York City and Paris, Iraqi PM Says

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Photo Credit: Peter Foley—Bloomberg / Getty By Sam Frizell.

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) plan to attack the subway systems in New York and Paris, Iraq’s prime minister said Thursday, but U.S. security officials said they had no evidence to back up the claim.

Haider al-Abadi told reporters at the United Nations General Assembly that information obtained from militants captured in Iraq yielded “credible” intelligence that the Islamist group is plotting attacks in New York and Paris, Reuters reports. “They plan to have attacks in the metros of Paris and the U.S.,” Abadi said. “I asked for more credible information. I asked for names. I asked for details, for cities, you know, dates. And from the details I have received, yes, it looks credible.”

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As U.S. takes on the Islamic State, al-Qaeda remains degraded but not defeated

By Greg Miller and Kevin Sieff.

As the United States mobilized against new Islamist enemies this month, the voice of an aging adversary echoed in the distance.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of al-Qaeda’s founders and its leader for the past three years, released a video announcing the formation of a new affiliate in India and lamenting the turmoil being caused by the rival Islamic State in Syria.

“Oh mujahideen, unite and reject differences and discord,” he said in a pleading tone that seemed to underscore the declining relevance of al-Qaeda’s core, the Pakistan-based group that orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But Zawahiri was silent on a far more sensitive project — the creation of a cell in Syria dedicated to plots against the United States — that once again made predictions of the demise of al-Qaeda’s core seem premature.

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Photo Credit: EPAFBI says it has identified ‘Jihadi John’ seen in ISIS execution videos but will not reveal his identity or nationality

By JILL REILLY FOR MAILONLINE.

The FBI has identified the ISIS executioner who appears in the beheading videos of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid worker John Haines.

Agency director James Comey told reporters today that he knew who the militant was but would not be releasing his identity or nationality to the media.

The executioner, who has a British accent and has been dubbed Jihadi John, is one of four British jihadis known as the ‘Beatles’ holding hostages in Syria.

He appears in the group’s execution videos wielding a knife – and taunts President Obama before carrying out the killings

Today British officials would not say if the identity had been shared with the authorities on London, and would not be drawn on whether any arrests are imminent.

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HealthCare.gov Actually Cost Over $2.1 Billion — And Counting (+video)

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HealthCare.gov alone has cost federal taxpayers $2.1 billion so far, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis — and the feds still aren’t finished building it.

The Obama administration’s most recent estimate on spending related to HealthCare.gov was just $834 million through February 2014. Health and Human Services secretary Sylvia Burwell projected in May that through fiscal year 2015, additional costs would bring HealthCare.gov’s grand total to just above $1 billion. (RELATED: HealthCare.gov Will Cost OVer $1 Billion To Build)

“The way in which Obamacare has been rolled out has been very messy,” Peter Gosselin, the study author, told Bloomberg News. “One of the reasons it has been implemented in the way it has been, financially, is precisely to deny opponents of the law a clear target.”

Federal officials intentionally spread out HealthCare.gov spending across “dozens of contracts,” according to the report, in a concerted effort to prevent transparency on the health-care website’s true cost.

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Baby Dies Whose Parents Wanted to Stop Life Support Just Because He Was Disabled

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsA disabled baby has died after a major battle in France pitted the parents of a disabled prematurely-born baby against doctors — as the parents wanted doctors to stop life support for their son because he is severely disabled.

The baby boy, named Titouan was born on August 31, four months before he was slated to be born. The baby weighed two pounds at birth and suffered from an intracerebral haemorrhage. Doctors at University Hospital Center of Poitiers said he has brain damage and they were unable to determine the extent of it. The baby’s parents, Mélanie and Aurélien, said doctors had informed them that their son will be severely disabled and paralyzed on one side of his body.

Doctors were asking the parents to hold off on taking their son off life support so they can more thoroughly evaluate his medical condition.

Now, Titouan has passed away — dying late Friday.

Before he passed away, doctors said his parents should not rush to take him off life support.

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Woman Punched on Film by California Highway Patrol Officer Reaches $1.5M Settlement

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Photo Credit: APBy Fox News.

A woman who was punched repeatedly by a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer in an incident caught on film earlier this year will receive $1.5M as part of a settlement reached Wednesday.

CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow announced the settlement in an emailed statement and an attorney for 51-year-old Marlene Pinnock confirmed the deal to the Associated Press. The agreement was reached after nine hours of mediation in Los Angeles.

As part of the agreement, the officer who struck Pinnock, Daniel Andrew, will resign. Andrew, who joined the CHP in 2012 and had been on paid administrative leave, could still be charged criminally in the case. The CHP forwarded the results of its investigation of the incident to Los Angeles County prosecutors last month, saying he could face serious charges but none have been filed yet.

“When this incident occurred, I promised that I would look into it and vowed a swift resolution,” Farrow’s statement said. “Today, we have worked constructively to reach a settlement agreement that is satisfactory to all parties involved.”

Pinnock’s attorney, Caree Harper, says they wanted to make sure the woman could have financial stability for the rest of her life and wanted to make sure that Andrew would not be an officer any longer.

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Photo Credit: ShutterstockNYPD Slams Pregnant Woman Onto the Street in Latest Rough Arrest Video

By Joe Coscarelli.

The NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating the 72nd Precinct in Brooklyn for the second time in two weeks — the first was for this uncalled-for kick — after a tough-to-watch video surfaced on Facebook of an officer throwing a pregnant woman onto the ground and holding her stomach-down. Sandra Amezquita, five-foot-four and visibly five months pregnant, attempted to intervene in the arrest of her 17-year-old son for possession of a knife when she was manhandled. A friend who ran up to check on her was sent flying down the street with a two-handed shove.

“The first thing I thought was they killed my baby and they’re going to kill my wife,” Ronel Lemos, the baby’s father, told the Daily News.

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Wood Bison, North America’s Largest Animal, to Be Reintroduced Into Alaska

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Photo Credit: Alan and Elaine Wilson via Wikimedia CommonsWood bison, the largest animal in the Americas, once roamed throughout present-day Alaska and western Canada. But unregulated hunting in the 1800s nearly wiped them out, and by the middle of the 20th century some thought the animals were extinct. But then, in 1957, a small herd was found in a remote part of Alberta by the crew of a plane flying overhead.

Since then, their numbers have rebounded to around 11,000 in Canada, as governmental organizations have helped breed and repatriate them to a few parts of their former range. But they have never been released back in the Alaskan wilds, where they once provided food, clothing and shelter for indigenous peoples for thousands of years.

But that’s about to change. In March 2015, officials will release 50 to 100 wood bison to the wild in western Alaska, said Doug Vincent-Lang, with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Currently, staff at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center outside Anchorage are facilitating the breeding of the bison, says operations director Tom Yeager.

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