UN versus IS

December 18, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

UN members, who often disagree, agree that the Islamic State's violent, intolerant campaign must be closed down.

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President Obama assured the nation Thursday that there are no “specific and credible” terror threats to the United States, on the same day emails to schools across the country triggered closings and heightened security. Obama’s speech and the simultaneous school searches and closings Thursday highlight a present conflict in many Americans’ hearts: In the face of terrorism, how can we be both confident and cautious? Schools in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, and Dallas received threatening emails Wednesday evening similar to the ones that closed Los Angeles schools earlier this week. And while officials from these districts decided to keep schools open Thursday, it wasn’t business-as-usual – school officials took extra precautions. Two Indianapolis school districts in Danville and Plainfield decided to close their doors due to similar local threats, keeping almost 8,000 students home Thursday.

European Union leaders on Thursday set a six-month deadline for deciding whether to push ahead with plans for a border guard agency that could deploy to member states unable or unwilling to manage their borders as thousands of migrants continue to arrive in Europe daily. The border and coast guard project is chiefly aimed at protecting Europe's external borders in countries like Greece and Italy as people fleeing conflict or poverty for better lives in Europe overwhelm coast guards and reception facilities.

The FBI arrested the man who sparked outrage this year when his company bought a generic prescription drug used to treat infections and swiftly raised the price of the medicine to astronomical proportions. Federal authorities took Martin Shkreli into custody in Manhattan Thursday morning after an investigation into securities fraud over two companies he used to run. Mr. Shkreli is now the chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. But, at one time, he was in charge of hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc.

New Orleans City Council members voted on Thursday to remove four Confederate monuments, including a tall pedestal with a statute of Gen. Robert E. Lee atop it and three other local Civil War figures, following a string of similar measures in recent months across areas of the American South. By early afternoon, a raucous debate took hold of New Orleans City Council chambers, where constituents with disparate views expressed opinions on whether to remove the Confederate monuments in the hours leading up to a vote, which was 6-to-1 in favor of removal.

New Jersey gun laws installed in 2013 may be used as a model for other states now considering similar actions. New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California are all looking to restrict gun sales to people who are on federal terror watch lists after Congress refused to implement a federal measure. The New Jersey regulations require criminal history checks through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and disqualifies anyone who is found to be a "known or appropriately suspected terrorist" from purchasing a gun. Nationally, people on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's terrorism watch list were able to purchase guns 2,043 times over a 10-year period ending in 2014, according to the US Government Accountability Office. It is unclear whether the NCIC check has actually resulted in preventing any would-be terrorists from purchasing weapons.

California regulators have unveiled a roadmap that would let consumers begin using self-driving cars, though manufacturers would have to prove the emerging technology is safe before a licensed driver could get chauffeured around town. The approach California's Department of Motor Vehicles offered Wednesday in precedent-setting draft regulations is cautious, though it does allow that Californians could be behind the wheel of a self-driving car by 2017. Among other safety-related requirements, the cars must have a steering wheel, and a licensed driver must be ready to take over if the machine fails.

The world’s lakes are warming faster than the atmosphere or the ocean, and this is a problem, say scientists. In the first study of its kind, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation and published Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, dozens of researchers from around the world studied 235 lakes spanning six continents, more than half of the world’s freshwater supply. Using 25 years worth of satellite and ground temperature data, the scientists concluded that the Earth’s lakes are warming an average of 0.61 degrees Fahrenheit each decade.

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