Perez: U.S. Should Stump Up Billions to Curb Central America Migration

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jorge Dan LopezThe United States should provide billions of dollars to help Central American nations curb the flow of illegal migrants, Guatemalan President Otto Perez said, and his government warns the problem will get worse if Washington fails to help.

Fleeing violence, trying to reach relatives already in the United States or seeking jobs, record numbers of child migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have been stopped at the southern U.S. border this year, causing widespread alarm.

Last month, the three countries pitched Washington an ambitious development plan to confront the issue.

They want to pump about $10 billion into the region to create jobs and lift living standards, with the bulk of funding coming from the United States, Perez told Reuters.

He hopes the plan could come up with about $2 billion a year from 2015 to 2019, a sum he equated to roughly 10 percent of annual U.S. spending on border security and immigration enforcement.

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Senator: Emails Reveal EPA, Green Group in ‘Beyond Cozy’ Relationship

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Photo Credit: Pete Souza / White HouseRepublican lawmakers say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enjoys a “beyond cozy” relationship with a liberal environmental action group that seeks to reshape national energy policies in a way that would hurt American businesses and families.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, told The Daily Signal that the Natural Resources Defense Council played an “absolutely inappropriate” role in drafting the EPA’s new carbon emissions plan.

“The EPA has been one of the least transparent agencies I have ever seen, but it’s become apparent that their lack of transparency is to hide the influence that an organization so heavily focused on undermining U.S. businesses and families has at EPA,” Vitter said.

Vitter and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., have directed staff to look into whether the EPA broke federal law in developing the carbon emissions regulations.

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New Benghazi Indictment Confirms Computers with Classified Information Stolen

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Photo Credit: ReutersAn indictment Tuesday of a Libyan militant already behind bars for the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans confirms that computers with sensitive and classified information were stolen from the consulate during the assault.

Fox News was first to report in July that at least two computers were stolen from the consulate. While the State Department initially dismissed Fox’s report, the new, 18-count indictment against Ahmed Abu Khattala confirms that sensitive and classified information was lost, including the location of the top secret CIA annex.

Abu Khattala, 43, the first militant to be prosecuted for the Benghazi violence, had initially been charged with conspiracy to provide support to terrorists, resulting in death. U.S. officials had described that initial, one-count indictment as a placeholder to allow for him to be brought into court and for a grand jury to hear more evidence.

The new indictment does not add to the public account of how the account unfolded but it does include multiple counts that make Abu Khattala eligible for the death penalty if convicted, including murder of an internationally protected person and killing a person during an armed attack on a federal facility. It also accuses him, among other charges, of providing material support to terrorists, malicious destruction of property and attempted murder of an officer and employee of the U.S.

The indictment also alleges rocket propelled grenades, AK 47s and semi-automatic assault rifles were used at the consulate, and then mortars at the Annex during the third wave of the assault –a level of firepower that would contradict the administration’s initial explanation that a demonstration had simply turned violent.

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White House Approving and Disapproving Content in News Reports…

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Photo Credit: White HouseWhite House journalists are creating an alternative system for distributing their media “pool” reports in response to the Obama administration’s involvement in approving and disapproving certain content in official reports.

A small group of reporters initiated an online forum this month in which they shared “pool” information among themselves, without White House involvement. The forum was set up by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), which negotiates with the White House’s press staff over access for journalists.

Pool reports — those summaries of the president’s public appearances that go to the news media at large and are used in countless news stories — are filed by a rotating group of journalists whose work is intended to be free of content changes by the White House.

The pool journalists, however, must submit their reports to the White House press office, which distributes them via e-mail to hundreds of news organizations and others. The White House maintains the list of recipients.

Reporters have complained that the Obama White House exploits its role as distributor to demand changes in pool reports and that the press office has delayed or refused to distribute some reports until they are amended to officials’ satisfaction.

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Ft. Hood Murderer's Attorney: "I Don't Know Where They Come Up With Workplace Violence"

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Photo Credit: TownHallLast night on The Kelly File Hassan’s current attorney, John Galligan, said he doesn’t understand where the classification of “workplace violence” comes from in this case.

“I don’t know where they come up with the term ‘work place violence.’ I’ve been in the Army 30 years, I’ve been in the practice of law for almost 35 years, work place violence was not the crime for which he was charged, it is not a punishable offense under the UCMJ and it’s certainly not an aggravating factor that would warrant the death penalty. Nidal Hasan was charged with mass murder,” Galligan said, adding the government had the option to charge him with terrorism and didn’t…

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Neil Young: Impeach Obama

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesBy Al Weaver.

In an appearance Tuesday night on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Neil Young told host Stephen Colbert that President Barack Obama should be impeached for allowing fracking.

“Last time you were here, you tried getting me to sing a song about impeaching the president who at the time was George W. Bush,” Colbert told the rock legend. “And you wanted to impeach him over getting us into the war in Iraq.

“Now that President Obama is getting us into a war in Iraq, are you up for impeaching him too?” asked Colbert in his character as a conservative talk show host.

“No,” responded Young.

“Then you’re a double hypocrite?” asked Colbert.

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Neil Young: Environment more important than defeating ISIS terrorists

By Joe Newby.

The radical Islamic group ISIS is taking large areas of land in Iraq and Syria, enslaving women and beheading anyone with whom they disagree — even children. But those are secondary concerns as far as singer Neil Young is concerned, Canada’s Sun News reported Tuesday. What’s more important to Young is the impact a conflict with ISIS would have on the environment.

“We can do little things to fight climate change but our armed forces are the biggest carbon dioxide providers in the world, and yet we are fighting, what, ISIS?” he told Howard Stern over the weekend. According to Young, terror groups like al-Qaida and ISIS have smaller carbon footprints than Western militaries and their “big machines,” Sun News added.

“Since 1950 we’ve lost 90% of the fish in the ocean (and) we’ve doubled our own population,” he told Stern. “Since 1970, we’ve lost half the wildlife on the planet and again we’ve doubled our population.”

“And we are fighting these wars against these organizations and their carbon footprint has got to be like one percent of our huge army and our navy and all of this stuff that have with all our big machines,” he added, as though America’s foreign policy and national defense should be based solely on the carbon footprint of its military. “We’re doing more damage to the earth with our wars. And you try to find out? Hey, freedom? No, freedom, you don’t get it. You can’t find out what that carbon footprint is of the military. It’s not available for us.”

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Democrat Mark Pryor Thinks $200K Is Middle Class

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Expect to see this gaffe get plenty of playtime in attack ads and on cable news: Arkansas Democratic Senator Mark Pryor apparently thinks that the middle class makes $200,000 annually.

Pryor made the comment during Tuesday night’s Arkansas Senate debate when asked to define the middle class. “Well you know, under the law there’s a lot of different definitions of middle-class, but when I think of the middle class I think of most of Arkansas, and maybe that goes up to $150,000, $200,000, there’s different ways to judge it.”

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Secretive X-37B Military Space Plane Could Land in California this Week

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Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force / Michael StonecypherBy Tariq Malik.

The U.S. Air Force’s mysterious X-37B space plane will return to Earth this week —possibly as early as Tuesday — after 22 months in orbit on a secret mission.

The robotic X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, will land at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where Air Force officials are gearing up for its return. As of Oct. 12, the X-37B mini-shuttle has been in orbit since December 2012 and racked up a record-shattering 671 days in space.

“Team Vandenberg stands ready to implement safe landing operations for the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, the third time for this unique mission” said Col. Keith Baits, 30th Space Wing commander, in a statement on Friday (Oct. 10). [See photos from the X-37B mission]

The X-37B landing could occur on Tuesday (Oct. 14), according to several press reports, including Reuters. The spacecraft is designed to fly itself autonomously during landings.

The Air Force has two X-37B space planes in its fleet and has been flying them on secret missions since 2010. But the exact purpose of those flights have been shrouded in secrecy. The mission in orbit now, called Orbital Test Vehicle 3 (OTV-3), launched on Dec. 11, 2012 aboard an Atlas 5 rocket.

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Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force3 Theories About the Air Force’s Mystery Space Plane, X-37B

By Sharon Weinberger.

Although the Air Force won’t say what the X-37B’s exact purpose is, there is enough known about its orbit (and basic physics) to estimate what this craft is and is not meant to do. Let’s take the top three theories one by one.

1. It’s a Space Bomber

Forget it, independent experts say. Yes, at one point the Pentagon was funding development of a reusable hypersonic vehicle that was supposed to deliver munitions anywhere in the world within 2 hours. But that concept, called the Common Aero Vehicle, was suborbital. As a spaceplane, the X-37B would suffer from at least one major drawback as a bomber. Changing a spacecraft’s orbital plane requires a great amount of thrust—so using something like the X-37B as a bomber would mean changing its orbit to fly over targets, and that would eat up its limited fuel supply, according to University of Maryland professor Mark Lewis, who once served as the Air Force’s chief scientist. “If I can’t get my alleged bomber to the right location to release its bomb, what good is it?” Lewis says.

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Ebola Catches Blame for S&P 500's Worst Three-Day Drop Since 2011

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Photo Credit: Spencer Platt / Getty Images via BloombergBy Joseph Ciolli and Oliver Renick.

U.S. stocks sank, erasing earlier gains and capping the worst three-day loss for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since 2011, as investors weighed prospects for slowing global growth and the spread of Ebola…

“It seemed like we were finally having a little slowing in selloff momentum, but obviously the bears won out here,” Joe Bell, a senior equity analyst in Cincinnati at Schaeffer’s Investment Research Inc., said by phone. Ebola is adding to “overall uncertainty and fear amongst Americans. Energy and oil are continuing to take a beating and are leading the market lower.”

Benchmark stock indexes fluctuated between gains and losses for much of the day before extending declines in the final two hours of trading as the S&P returned below its 200-day average. Medical crews surrounded an Emirates Airline plane at Boston’s Logan Airport and five passengers aboard the flight from Dubai were taken off, WCVB reported, though there was no indication the sick travelers had Ebola…

A rout in global equities wiped $1.54 trillion from shares last week, with the S&P 500 tumbling 3.1 percent for its worst drop in two years, amid growing concern of an international economic slowdown. Chicago Fed President Charles Evans today reiterated his concern that inflation may rise only slowly to the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent goal and said policy makers should be “exceptionally patient” in adjusting monetary policy…

The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for global growth last week and said the euro area faces the risk of a recession. The IMF also said that the chances of equity losses in 2014 have risen and stock valuations may be “frothy.” European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said last week that there are signs the euro-area’s economic growth is slowing.

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Metro bus driver quarantined after passenger yells ‘I have Ebola!’

By VERONICA ROCHA.

A metro driver has been quarantined and the bus he was operated taken out of service after a masked passenger began yelling, “Don’t mess with me, I have Ebola!”

Metro officials said they are working with Los Angeles County sheriff’s transit authorities to review surveillance footage taken from inside the bus to determine the identity of the masked passenger, who was accompanied by a woman, Metro spokesman Marc Littman said.

The Monday afternoon incident is being investigated as a possible terrorist threat because of the fear it incited, he said.

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Pentagon Calls Climate Change a Matter of ‘National Security’

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Photo Credit: APDefense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday described climate change as a national security threat — at a time when the U.S. military is battling the Islamic State in the Mideast, responding to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, and monitoring tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

The Defense secretary addressed the issue during a speech in Peru, as the Pentagon released a comprehensive report on the “national security” challenges posed by rising global temperatures and “extreme weather events.”

Hagel described climate change as a “threat multiplier,” saying it “has the potential to exacerbate many of the challenges we already confront today — from infectious disease to armed insurgencies — and to produce new challenges in the future.”

The Pentagon’s new report maps out four areas of climate change deemed the most threatening to the U.S. military — rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, more extreme weather and rising sea levels. And it warns about the impact they could have on food and water supplies, the environment and American security itself.

“Our militaries’ readiness could be tested, and our capabilities could be stressed,” Hagel said, addressing a conference of military leaders.

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