California Drought: El Niño Chances Fall Again

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Photo Credit: Brian MurphyHopes of an almighty El Niño bringing rain to a drought-stricken California – with its fallow fields, depleted streams and parched lawns – were further dashed Thursday. The National Weather Service, in its monthly El Niño report, again downgraded the chances of the influential weather pattern occurring in the fall or winter.

The odds were 80 percent in May, but were placed between 60 and 65 percent this week.

Meanwhile, the agency also announced that the much-needed weather event is likely to be weak instead of moderate in strength – another retreat from the more robust projections made earlier this year that fueled speculation that California’s three-year dry spell might be snapped.

El Niños, defined by warming Pacific Ocean waters that release enough energy to shape worldwide weather, have been associated with wet winters in the Golden State. The strong 1997-98 event correlated with San Francisco’s biggest recorded rain year: a whopping 47.2 inches of rain.

But the correlation doesn’t always hold up. While El Niños carry the potential to bring quenching showers, this week’s climate report doesn’t necessarily doom the state to another year of drought.

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City Mandates Free Medical Marijuana for Low-Income Residents

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Photo Credit: My Fox NYWeed welfare?

That’s what the Berkeley City Council in California has unanimously approved, ordering medical marijuana dispensaries to donate 2 percent of their stash to patients making less than $32,000 a year.

The new welfare program in the liberal-leaning city is set to launch in August 2015.

The ordinance, which passed in August and is the first of its kind in the country, comes at a time when several states are debating how to handle a growing movement to legalize marijuana for both medical and recreational use.

But Berkeley’s decision to effectively order weed redistribution is prompting a vocal backlash.

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Top CIA Officer in Benghazi Delayed Response to Terrorist Attack, US Security Team Members Claim

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsA U.S. security team in Benghazi was held back from immediately responding to the attack on the American diplomatic mission on orders of the top CIA officer there, three of those involved told Fox News’ Bret Baier.

Their account gives a dramatic new turn to what the Obama administration and its allies would like to dismiss as an “old story” – the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Speaking out publicly for the first time, the three were security operators at the secret CIA annex in Benghazi – in effect, the first-responders to any attack on the diplomatic compound. Their first-hand account will be told in a Fox News special, airing Friday night at 10 p.m. (EDT).

Based on the new book “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi” by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team, the special sets aside the political spin that has freighted the Benghazi issue for the last two years, presenting a vivid, compelling narrative of events from the perspective of the men who wore the “boots on the ground.”

The security contractors — Kris (“Tanto”) Paronto, Mark (“Oz”) Geist, and John (“Tig”) Tiegen — spoke exclusively, and at length, to Fox News about what they saw and did that night. Baier, Fox News’ Chief Political Anchor, asked them about one of the most controversial questions arising from the events in Benghazi: Was help delayed?

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Hacker Breached HealthCare.gov Insurance Site

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By Danny Yadron.

A hacker broke into part of the HealthCare.gov insurance enrollment website in July and uploaded malicious software, according to federal officials.

Investigators found no evidence that consumers’ personal data was taken in the breach, federal officials said. The hacker appears only to have accessed a server used to test code for HealthCare.gov. The Department of Health and Human Services discovered the attack last week.

An HHS official said the attack appears to mark the first successful intrusion into the website, where millions of Americans bought insurance starting last year under the Affordable Care Act. It raised concerns among federal officials because of how easily the intruder gained access and how much damage could have occurred.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: TownHallTrainwreck, Continued: Eight New Pieces of Bad Obamacare News

By Guy Benson.

Who’s up for the latest batch of bad Obamacare-related news?

(1) Consumers brace for the second full year of Obamacare implementation, as the average individual market premium hike clocks in at eight percent — with some rates spiking by as much as 30 percent.

(2) “Wide swings in prices,” with some experiencing “double digit increases.”(Remember what we were promised):

Insurance executives and managers of the online marketplaces are already girding for the coming open enrollment period, saying they fear it could be even more difficult than the last. One challenge facing consumers will be wide swings in prices. Some insurers are seeking double-digit price increases…

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Army Can't Track Spending on $4.3b System to Track Spending, IG Finds

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Photo Credit: iStockMore than $725 million was spent by the Army on a high-tech network for tracking supplies and expenses that failed to comply with federal financial reporting rules meant to allow auditors to track spending, according to an inspector general’s report issued Wednesday.

The Global Combat Support System-Army, a logistical support system meant to track supplies, spare parts and other equipment, was launched in 1997. In 2003, the program switched from custom software to a web-based commercial software system.

About $95 million was spent before the switch was made, according to the report from the Department of Defense IG.

As of this February, the Army had spent $725.7 million on the system, which is ultimately expected to cost about $4.3 billion.

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Keystone Showdown: Battle Over Pipeline Lands Before Nebraska High Court

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Photo Credit: ReutersThe national debate on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline will concentrate on Lincoln, Nebraska Friday as that state’s Supreme Court hears arguments in a case examining whether lawmakers short-circuited the regular approval process in an attempt to expedite the pipeline’s construction.

The court’s ruling – not expected for several months — could force President Obama’s hand in making a final decision whether to green light the oft-stalled project.

Protests and political outrage have accompanied the proposed pipeline for years, but quieted down in recent months because of the Nebraska litigation and the Obama administration’s decision to wait for a ruling in the case before moving forward.

“The issue never goes away if you’re dealing with the pipeline on a local level,” anti-pipeline activist Jane Kleeb told Fox News. “While it may not be on the front page of newspapers nationwide, we’re dealing with it on a daily basis.”

Friday’s case before the seven-member court does not examine whether the pipeline should be built in Nebraska – or anywhere else — but rather if the state’s unicameral legislature improperly passed a law giving the governor authority to approve the project rather than the state’s Public Service Commission. It will take a supermajority of five justices to invalidate the law.

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Obama’s Approval Rating Drops To All-Time Low … Again

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Obama-worried-1109President Obama’s approval rating returned to his record low Thursday, following his admission last week that the White House “has no strategy” to deal with the growing threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Just 38 percent of Americans approve of the job the president is doing, according to Gallup’s Daily Tracking Poll. His rating has declined steadily since December of last year, when the 50 percent of Americans approved of his work, and the newest number ties his all-time low.

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'We're a Movement Now': Fast Food Workers Strike in 150 Cities

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Photo Credit: SETH FREED WESSLER / NBC NEWS

Photo Credit: SETH FREED WESSLER / NBC NEWS

Fast food workers walked off the job nationwide on Thursday, as police arrested dozens who engaged in civil disobedience.

Organizers said workers in an estimated 150 cities were expected to take part in the strike, which they said marked an intensification of their two-year campaign to raise hourly pay in the industry to $15 and to win workers’ right to form a union. Organizers said dozens of workers had been arrested in cities including Kansas City, Detroit, and New York.

In Kansas City, workers were expected to walk out of 60 restaurants, and more than 50 workers were arrested. Ten minutes after they sat down and linked arms in an intersection in front of a McDonald’s, police arrived with vans and plastic cuffs and arrested the protesters one by one. They were joined by more than 100 other fast food workers, clergy members and other allies who stood on the sidewalk across the street and chanted “15 and a union,” and sang spirituals.

Latoya Caldwell, a Wendy’s worker, sat near the edge of the group in the street wearing a t-shirt that read “Stand Up KC” and beside a woman holding a sign bearing the face of Rosa Parks. Caldwell was arrested and loaded into a van.

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One Person Commits Suicide Every 40 Seconds: WHO

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Photo Credit: AFP / Pedro Ugarte

Photo Credit: AFP / Pedro Ugarte

One person commits suicide every 40 seconds — more than all the yearly victims of wars and natural disaster — with the highest toll among the elderly, the United Nations said Thursday.

In its first report on suicide, the UN’s World Health Organisation blamed intense media coverage when celebrities kill themselves for fuelling the problem.

“Suicide is an amazing public health problem. There is one suicide every 40 seconds — it is a huge number,” said Shekhar Saxena, director of WHO’s mental health department, at the presentation of the report in Geneva.

“Suicide kills more than conflicts, wars and natural catastrophes,” he said. “There are 1.5 million violent deaths every year in the world, of which 800,000 are suicides.”

Some of the highest rates of suicide are found in central and eastern Europe and in Asia, with 25 percent occurring in rich countries, the report says.

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CDC CONFIRMS: EBOLA IS NOW IN THE UNITED STATES, SILENT ON WHETHER CARRIER IS FOREIGN

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Italy EbolaBy Julie Steenhuysen and Sharon Begley. U.S. health officials said on Tuesday the first patient infected with the deadly Ebola virus had been diagnosed in the country after flying from Liberia to Texas, in a new sign of how the outbreak ravaging West Africa can spread globally.

The patient sought treatment six days after arriving in Texas on Sept. 20, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters on Tuesday. He was admitted two days later to an isolation room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

U.S. health officials and lawmakers have been bracing for the eventuality that a patient would arrive on U.S. shores undetected, testing the preparedness of the nation’s healthcare system.

Frieden said a handful of people, mostly family members, may have been exposed to the patient after he fell ill. He said there was likely no threat to any passengers who had traveled with the patient. Asked whether the patient was a U.S. citizen, Frieden described the person as a visitor to family in the country.

“It is certainly possible someone who had contact with this individual could develop Ebola in the coming weeks,” Frieden told a news conference. “I have no doubt we will stop this in its tracks in the United States.”

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Readying for Ebola: How U.S. Hospitals Are Gearing Up

By Eric Niiler.

Federal health-care officials, hospital administrators and emergency-care doctors are preparing for the first cases of Ebola here in the United States. Experts say it’s not a question of if, but rather when it will happen.

The good news is that the public health infrastructure in the United States — from the epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control to the weekend physician at the local doc-in-a-box — has been mobilized for this very eventuality. Many hospitals, even those in many rural areas, are prepared with virus-proof protective gear and isolation units for sick patients.

The bad news is that the disease continues to grow unabated in West Africa, and that containing the spread is getting tougher every day.

“We will see cases,” said Alessandro Vespignani, a physics professor at Northeastern University who has developed a biological model of the worldwide spread of Ebola based on current infection rates, population trends and air traffic from the affected zone. “The good news from our modeling is the size of the outbreak is very limited. Even in the worse case, the size of the outbreak in the United States is just two or three individuals.”

Vespignani’s model estimates probability of an infected Ebola patient — not an infected health care worker — showing up on a given day currently in the United States at 3 or 4 percent. That number jumps to 20 percent by the end of October.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: CBS46

Photo Credit: CBS46

CDC issues Ebola guidelines for U.S. funeral homes

By Jocelyn Connell.

CBS46 News has confirmed the Centers for Disease Control has issued guidelines to U.S. funeral homes on how to handle the remains of Ebola patients. If the outbreak of the potentially deadly virus is in West Africa, why are funeral homes in America being given guidelines?

The three-page list of recommendations include instructing funeral workers to wear protective equipment when dealing with the remains since Ebola can be transmitted in postmortem care. It also instructs to avoid autopsies and embalming.

Click here for complete coverage on the Ebola outbreak.

Alysia English is Executive Director of the Georgia Funeral Directors Association, the oldest and largest funeral association in Georgia.

Georgia is comprised of 700 funeral homes and 2,000 funeral directors.

CBS46 News

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