US may use ground forces in Iraq if air campaign against militants fails, top general says
WASHINGTON (AP) - American ground troops may be needed to battle Islamic State forces in the Middle East if President Barack Obama’s current strategy fails, the nation’s top military officer said Tuesday as Congress plunged into an election-year debate of Obama’s plan to expand airstrikes and train Syrian rebels.
A White House spokesman said quickly the president “will not” send ground forces into combat, but Gen. Martin Dempsey said Obama had personally told him to come back on a “case by case basis” if the military situation changed.
“To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the president,” Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. He referred to the militants by an alternative name.
Pressed later by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the panel’s chairman, the four-star general said if Obama’s current approach isn’t enough to prevail, he might “go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of ground forces.”
Dempsey’s testimony underscored the dilemma confronting many lawmakers as the House moves through its own debate on authorizing the Pentagon to implement the policy Obama announced last week. In Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. continued its expanded military campaign, carrying out two airstrikes northwest of Irbil and three southwest of Baghdad.
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Obama declares Ebola a global threat, outlines response - but will it be enough and in time?
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama declared Tuesday that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa could threaten security around the world, and he ordered 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the region in emergency aid muscle for a crisis spiraling out of control.
The question was whether the aid would be enough and was coming in time. An ominous World Health Organization forecast said that with so many people now spreading the virus, the number of Ebola cases could start doubling every three weeks.
“If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people affected, with profound economic, political and security implications for all of us,” Obama said Tuesday after briefings in Atlanta with doctors and officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University.
Obama called on other countries to join in quickly supplying more health workers, equipment and money. By day’s end the administration asked Congress to shift another $500 million in Pentagon money to the effort, meaning the U.S. could end up devoting $1 billion to contain the outbreak.
“It’s a potential threat to global security if these countries break down,” Obama said, speaking of the hardest-hit nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. At least 2,400 people have died, with Liberia bearing the brunt. Nearly 5,000 people have fallen ill in those countries and Nigeria and Senegal since the disease was first recognized in March. WHO says it anticipates the figure could rise to more than 20,000, and the disease could end up costing nearly $1 billion to contain.
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10 Things to Know for Wednesday
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Wednesday:
1. TOP US GENERAL: GROUND TROOPS MAY BE NEEDED IN MIDEAST
Gen. Martin Dempsey tells Congress that if the current approach fails to defeat the Islamic State group, he might recommend deploying American ground forces.
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Kraken good show: New Zealand researchers’ exam of rarely seen colossal squid draws 142K views
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - It was a calm morning in Antarctica’s remote Ross Sea, during the season when the sun never sets, when Capt. John Bennett and his crew hauled up a creature with tentacles like fire hoses and eyes like dinner plates from a mile below the surface.
A colossal squid: 350 kilograms (770 pounds), as long as a minibus and one of the sea’s most elusive species. It had been frozen for eight months until Tuesday, when scientists in New Zealand got a long-anticipated chance to thaw out the animal and inspect it - once they used a forklift to maneuver it into a tank.
Huge squid sometimes inhabit the world of fiction and imagination, but have rarely been seen in daylight. It’s possible that ancient sightings of the species gave rise to tales of the kraken, or giant sea-monster squid, said Kat Bolstad, a squid scientist from the Auckland University of Technology led the team examining the creature.
She described this rare specimen as “very big, very beautiful.”
The squid is a female, and its eight arms are each well over a meter (3.3 feet) long. Its two tentacles would have been perhaps double that length if they had not been damaged.
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Ukraine lawmakers approve landmark deal with Europe, give greater autonomy for rebellious east
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine moved to resolve months of crisis Tuesday by strengthening ties to Europe and loosening some controls over the country’s rebellious eastern regions where it has been fighting Russian-backed separatists.
The actions by lawmakers began to flesh out the emerging picture of a new Ukraine, where a determined pivot toward Europe has come at great cost: concessions to Russia and a war with rebels that killed more than 3,000 people and pushed the West’s relations with Moscow to Cold War-era lows.
The measure deepening the economic and political ties with Europe was the issue that sparked the crisis last fall, when then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to shelve the deal in favor of closer ties with Russia sparked protests by hundreds of thousands. Those demonstrations eventually drove him from power in February and led to the annexation of Crimea by Moscow and the rebellion in the east, where a shaky cease-fire began Sept. 5.
The deal lowers trade tariffs between Europe and Ukraine, requires Ukrainian goods to meet European regulatory standards and forces the Kiev government to undertake major political and economic reforms.
After parliament ratified the measure, lawmakers leapt to their feet to applaud and sing the Ukrainian national anthem. A live broadcast of the session was beamed to the European parliament.
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Police hunt for suspect in trooper killing, say he’s an angry survivalist bent on mass murder
BLOOMING GROVE, Pa. (AP) - Hundreds of law enforcement officers fanned out across the dense northeastern Pennsylvania woods Tuesday in the hunt for a heavily armed survivalist suspected of ambushing two troopers as part of a deadly vendetta against police.
Eric Matthew Frein, 31, of Canadensis, is “extremely dangerous” and residents in the area should be alert and cautious, State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said at a news conference in which he revealed the suspect’s name.
“He has made statements about wanting to kill law enforcement officers and also to commit mass acts of murder,” Noonan said. “What his reasons are, we don’t know. But he has very strong feelings about law enforcement and seems to be very angry with a lot of things that go on in our society.”
Frein was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder, homicide of a law enforcement officer and other offenses. About 200 law enforcement officials were combing the rural area of northeastern Pennsylvania marked by dense forest, but “we have no idea where he is,” Noonan said.
Police found a U.S. Army manual called “Sniper Training and Employment” in the suspect’s bedroom at his parents’ house, and his father, a retired Army major, told authorities that his son is an excellent marksman who “doesn’t miss,” according to a police affidavit released Tuesday.
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NASA picks Boeing and SpaceX to carry astronauts to space station by 2017 in $6.8 billion deal
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - NASA is a giant step closer to launching Americans again from U.S. soil.
On Tuesday, the space agency picked Boeing and SpaceX to transport astronauts to the International Space Station in the next few years.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden named the winners of the competition at Kennedy Space Center, next door to where the launches should occur in a few years. The wall behind him was emblazoned with the words “Launch America” and “Commercial crew transportation/The mission is in sight.”
“I want you to look behind me,” Bolden said, pointing both thumbs to the big, bright logos. “I’m giddy today, I will admit.”
The deal will end NASA’s expensive reliance on Russia to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. NASA has set a goal of 2017 for the first launch from Cape Canaveral, but stressed it will not sacrifice safety to meet that date.
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CDC study: Americans’ bellies are expanding fast - a particularly dangerous trend
CHICAGO (AP) - The number of American men and women with big-bellied, apple-shaped figures - the most dangerous kind of obesity - has climbed at a startling rate over the past decade, according to a government study.
People whose fat has settled mostly around their waistlines instead of in their hips, thighs, buttocks or all over are known to run a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and other obesity-related ailments.
Fifty-four percent of U.S. adults have abdominal obesity, up from 46 percent in 1999-2000, researchers reported in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. Abdominal obesity is defined as a waistline of more than 35 inches in women and more than 40 inches in men.
During the 12-year period studied, the average waist size in the U.S. expanded to 38 inches for women, a gain of 2 inches. It grew to 40 inches for men, a 1-inch increase.
“The increase is a concern. There’s no question about that,” said Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert formerly with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, now at George Washington University.
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AP Interview: Justice Department selects researchers to study racial bias in policing
WASHINGTON (AP) - Broadening its push to improve police relations with minorities, the Justice Department has enlisted a team of criminal justice researchers to study racial bias in law enforcement in five American cities and recommend strategies to address the problem nationally, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.
The police shooting last month of an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri underscored the need for the long-planned initiative, Holder said in an interview with The Associated Press.
He said the three-year project could be a “silver lining” if it helps ease racial tensions and “pockets of distrust that show up between law enforcement and the communities that they serve.”
“What I saw in Ferguson confirmed for me that the need for such an effort was pretty clear,” Holder said.
The five cities have not yet been selected, but the researchers involved in the project say they’re bringing a holistic approach that involves training police officers on issues of racial bias, data analysis and interviews with community members. They expect to review police behavior in the cities with the hope of building community trust and creating an evidence-based model that could be applied more broadly.
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NFL Players Association appeals Ray Rice’s indefinite suspension
BALTIMORE (AP) - The NFL players’ union appealed Ray Rice’s indefinite suspension Tuesday night.
Rice was originally handed a two-game suspension in July under the NFL’s personal conduct policy after he was charged with assault following a Feb. 15 altercation with his then-fiancee in a casino elevator.
The Baltimore running back had already served the first game of that suspension when, on Sept. 8, a video surfaced showing Rice punching Janay Palmer, now his wife, in that elevator.
Within hours, the Ravens released Rice and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell extended the suspension to indefinite based on the “new evidence.”
Goodell and the Ravens say they never saw the video before Sept. 8.
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