Obama administration to assign 3,000 US military personnel to combat Ebola in West Africa
The Obama administration is ramping up its response to West Africa's Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the afflicted region to supply medical and logistical support to overwhelmed local health care systems and to boost the number of beds needed to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.
President Barack Obama planned to announce the stepped-up effort Tuesday during a visit to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta amid alarm that the outbreak could spread and that the deadly virus could mutate into a more easily transmitted disease.
The new U.S. muscle comes after appeals from the region and from aid organizations for a heightened U.S. role in combatting the outbreak blamed for more than 2,200 deaths.
Administration officials said Monday that the new initiatives aim to train as many as 500 health care workers a week.
Taliban suicide bomber kills 3 foreign troops in strike on convoy near US Embassy in Kabul
A Taliban attacker detonated his car bomb next to an international military convoy on Tuesday, killing three troops from the NATO-led force and wounding nearly 20 troops and civilians, officials said.
Security forces in full battle gear administered CPR to wounded comrades shortly after the 8:10 a.m. blast, which rattled nearby neighborhoods and sent a plume of smoke high into the sky. The attack happened only a couple hundred yards from the U.S. Embassy, on a main Kabul road that leads to the airport.
The statement from the military coalition known as ISAF said five troops were wounded in addition to the three killed. It did not say which nationalities the troops were. The attack happened next to an ISAF base that houses many Americans.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
The three military deaths -- and a fourth in the country's east -- brought the total number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 59, at least 42 of whom were American.
In first high-stakes hearing, Congress scrutinizes Obama strategy to defeat Islamic extremists
President Barack Obama's strategy to combat Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria is being scrutinized in Congress, where the expanded military campaign has broad support but faces skepticism rooted in more than a decade of war.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were scheduled to testify Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the first in a series of high-profile Capitol Hill hearings that will measure the president's ability to rally congressional support.
Obama last week outlined his military plan to destroy the extremists, authorizing U.S. airstrikes inside Syria, stepping up attacks in Iraq and deploying additional American troops, with more than 1,000 now advising and assisting Iraqi security forces to counter the terrorism threat. The U.S. conducted the first of the airstrikes Monday, going to the aid of Iraqi security forces who were being attacked by enemy fighters.
The president said he had the authority to order the airstrikes without new congressional approval. Obama did ask Congress to authorize a program to train and arm vetted Syrian rebels battling the Islamic State group and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, a program that got a boost Monday as House Republicans pushed to authorize the mission.
Still, there were doubters.
New stream of foreign fighters from Europe as Kurds take up arms against Islamic militants
Shaho Pirani says he's just a phone call away from leaving his quiet life in Denmark and joining Kurdish forces battling against Islamic State militants in Iraq.
The 30-year-old Kurd, who fled from Iran with his older brother in 1991, says he feels a moral duty to help the Peshmerga, the armed forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government, to fight the "psychopaths" of the Islamic State group.
"I feel so helpless here," Pirani told The Associated Press in an interview in his home in Koege, a tranquil Copenhagen suburb with neatly trimmed lawns and hedges. "I am ready to die for the Kurdish cause."
While more than 2,000 Europeans are believed to have joined the Islamic State organization and other jihadist groups as foreign fighters, a smaller number has left Europe in recent months to fight against the Islamic militants, primarily with Peshmerga forces in Iraq's Kurdish north, Kurdish Diaspora leaders and security officials say.
Unlike with Islamic State fighters, however, European governments don't show any intention to stop the Kurdish volunteers from getting involved in the conflict. Though they, too, stand to get weapons training and combat experience and could return traumatized by the horrors of war, the Kurdish fighters are not seen as a threat to the West.
Northern California wildfire devastates town; at least 100 homes destroyed, 1,500 evacuated
Dan Linville and his son were sitting in their living room when they smelled smoke. When they looked outside, they saw a black cloud coming over the hills.
Ten minutes later, a fire driven by fierce winds raced through their neighborhood, missing them by three houses and torching a roof across the street.
Officials said the fire damaged or destroyed 100 homes in this tiny town near the Oregon border on Monday and forced the evacuation of at least 1,500 people.
The Linvilles figure a quarter of the town burned.
"It's horrible," said Linville, 80. "I've got tears in my heart for all these people that I know who lost their homes."
Badly damaged village puts rebuilding ahead of casting blame in Ukraine's conflict
The kindergarten building in this village in eastern Ukraine was once a source of pride. Renovated and brightly decorated with money provided by German donors, its classrooms were opening the doors of education to 120 pupils at a time.
Today, the building is a dusty, rocket-riddled wreck. Scatterings of bullet holes in the walls suggest a gun battle probably took place nearby.
For much of Ukraine's five-month-old war, Novosvitlivka was largely spared. Then in early August, it was taken over by government forces, only to be aggressively clawed back by Russian-backed separatists. Widespread, indiscriminate rocket attacks destroyed the school, many homes and the local hospital. The conflict has left some streets littered with the remains of destroyed tanks.
Many residents brush away the question of who is responsible for the village's destruction and focus instead on how their community is to survive and rebuild.
"We didn't want war," said Tatyana, one of several hospital workers who were clearing away smashed glass and bricks from the building where they worked.
Street gangs toning down colors, tattoos in effort to avoid easy detection by police
Nearly gone are the gang days of the 1980s and '90s, when the Bloods wore head-to-toe red, the Crips wore blue and Latin Kings wore black and gold.
Gangs from coast to coast have toned down their use of colors and are even removing or altering tattoos to avoid being easily identified by police and witnesses, law enforcement officials say.
Today, the most you might see is part of a red handkerchief hanging out of a back pocket or a gold and black baseball cap, said Johnmichael O'Hare, a Hartford police sergeant who monitors gangs.
"Many of them don't wear colors. They tell us they're not in gangs," O'Hare said. "They're trying to avoid detection from law enforcement."
Gang members also don't want to stand out because they are committing more white-collar-type crimes, such as credit card and identity thefts, authorities say.
The high road or the low road? Scotland took a long and winding path to independence vote
On Calton Hill, overlooking Edinburgh, stands Scotland's National Monument. A colonnade of classical stone pillars modeled on the Parthenon in Athens, it's grand, inspiring -- and unfinished, ever since the money to build it ran out two centuries ago.
It's a fitting image for the country as seen by independence campaigners, who hope voters will finish Scotland's incomplete journey to statehood by backing separation from Britain in a referendum on Thursday.
Polls suggest the outcome will be close. For many people south of the Scottish-English border, the idea that Scotland might leave the United Kingdom has come as a recent shock. But it has been decades, even centuries, in the making.
``I've always felt we could run ourselves. We used to, years ago,'' said David Hall, whose job is winding the clocks on some of Edinburgh's most famous structures, including the Nelson Monument on Calton Hill.
He adds an often-heard sentiment: "We've always been treated as second-rate up here, by down south.''
Vikings bring back RB Adrian Peterson despite child abuse charge, will play vs Saints
Adrian Peterson was back at Minnesota Vikings headquarters on Monday, and the first thing fullback Jerome Felton did when he saw his star running back was give him a high-five.
While many of Peterson's teammates welcomed him back and threw their support behind the embattled former MVP, the Vikings also faced plenty of criticism for deciding to let Peterson play while facing charges of child abuse.
The Radisson hotel chain suspended its sponsorship deal with the Vikings and former players like Cris Carter and Scott Fujita lined up to question the team's motives while Peterson insisted that he was not a child abuser.
"I understand that this is a very difficult thing to handle," Vikings general manager Rick Spielman said.
"But we also feel strongly as an organization that this is disciplining a child. Whether it's an abusive situation or not, or whether he went too far disciplining, we feel very strongly that that is the court's decision to make, but we also understand the seriousness of abusing children as well."
After deactivating Peterson for the 30-7 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday while they gathered more information on the face of the franchise's indictment, the Vikings reinstated Peterson on Monday and said they expected him to play against the New Orleans Saints next weekend. Peterson is accused of using a wooden switch to spank his 4-year-old son.
