The Blue Ridge Times

An Islamic State operative suspected of involvement in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, has been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq, the Pentagon said Monday. Ali Awni al-Harzi “operated closely with multiple ISIL-associated extremists throughout North Africa and the Middle East,” Defence Department spokesman Col. Steve Warren said in a statement, using one acronym for the militant group. “His death degrades ISIL’s ability to integrate North African jihadists into the Syrian and Iraqi fight and removes a jihadist with long ties to international terrorism.” One American was killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Protesters also stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo. AP   Warren said al-Harzi, a Tunisian national, was killed last week in Mosul, which fell to Islamic State forces a year ago. California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said al-Harzi “was responsible for planning h...

A prison worker accused of helping two convicted killers break out of a maximum-security New York jail earlier this month smuggled them vital tools that were concealed inside frozen chunks of hamburger meat, according to a report published late Monday. Joyce Mitchell, 51, has been charged with felony promoting prison contraband and misdemeanor criminal facilitation in connection with the escape of Richard Matt and David Sweat from Clinton County Correctional Facility on the night of June 5-6. Court documents allege that Mitchell provided the men with hacksaw blades, chisels, a punch and a screwdriver bit in the weeks prior to the escape.   Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that Mitchell came up with the idea to sneak the tools into the jail masked by the frozen food. Meanwhile, authorities said they had recovered items from a remote cabin in northern New York state, near the Canadian border, that may be linked to Sweat and Matt. State Police Maj. Charles Gues...

The National Weather Service outside Chicago says it's sending two teams out Tuesday to assess damage from severe weather that hit northern Illinois late Monday. Initial damage surveys based on radar show at least seven possible tornado tracks south and west of Chicago. Storm reports indicate that Coal City, Mendota and Sublette received the most substantial damage. Other locations include Harmon, Ottawa, Morris and Braidwood to Momence. Meteorologist Jamie Enderlen says weather service teams will determine how many tornadoes touched down and their severity, including their path, length, width and wind speeds. ___ 5:15 a.m. CDT Police in a northern Illinois community that was hit by a tornado says officials are moving away from search and rescue operations to now assessing damage. Coal City Police Sgt. Thomas Logan tells the Chicago Tribune that officials moved to assessing damage as of 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. The community of about 5,000 people about 60 miles southwest o...

Almost precisely 150 years after the end of the nation’s devastating Civil War, the Confederate battle flag has once again become a bitterly-divisive symbol of the nation’s enduring struggle with the legacies of slavery and segregation. But the “stars and bars” also remains an emblem of deep-seated cultural pride that many Southerners say transcends the ugly histories of the past. For many in the state, the flag still represents “traditions that are noble,” said Gov. Nikki Haley Monday, noting that many South Carolinians “view the flag as a symbol of respect, integrity, and duty,” and “a way to honor ancestors who came to the service of their state during time of conflict.” “That is not hate, nor is it racism,” she said. Infographic Race equality in America: How far have we come?    But since many others in the state see the flag as “a deeply offensive symbol of a brutally oppressive past,” it is time “to look at this in a different way,” she said, saying that...

WASHINGTON —  Virgil Porterfield in southern Missouri minces no words when he says what it would mean for him and his wife if the US Supreme Court rules against the Obama administration in a case this month. “It would be the difference between having medical insurance and not,” says Mr. Porterfield, a former worker in the oil and gas industry who, at age 63, is not yet eligible for Medicare. At their age and in their rural part of Missouri, the “silver” level of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) carries a hefty price tag of about $1,100 per month, he says. The King v. Burwell lawsuit, which the Supreme Court is expected to rule on by the end of June, could potentially void the subsidy tax credits that help Porterfield and several million other Americans afford to be insured. Politically, the case could be about the survival of President Obama’s signature domestic-policy achievement – the law that many Americans know as “Obamacare.” Legally, the court cas...

From Charleston, South Carolina, to the statehouse steps in Columbia, there is anger over the Confederate flag and all it represents. The mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston has reignited the debate over whether officials should remove the Confederate flag from state property. Republican state Rep. Doug Brannon plans to introduce a bill to remove the flag, which he acknowledges will likely cost him re-election, reports CBS News' Adriana Diaz. "The switch that flipped was the death of my friend Sen. (Clementa) Pinckney... I've been in the House five years. I should have filed that bill five years ago. The time is now, I can't let my friend the senator's death go without fundamental change in South Carolina," Brannon said. Brannon said he plans to introduce his bill as early as he can, which won't be until December. Other politicians have said they will wait until after funerals can be held for the nine victims of last week's shoot...

TAOS, N.M. (AP) — Searchers have found the body of a former White House chef who had been missing for more than a week after going hiking in the New Mexico mountains, authorities said. The body of 61-year-old Walter Scheib was found Sunday night near a hiking trail in mountains in the Taos area, the New Mexico State Police said. "The body was discovered off the immediate trail," a State Patrol statement said. Authorities did not provide a cause of death or any other details about the discovery, saying rescuers were still gathering information and more details would be released later. Scheib was White House chef for 11 years under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and recently moved from Florida to Taos. He reportedly went for a hike June 13 in the mountains near the Taos Ski Valley. His girlfriend reported him missing the next day. Taos police found his vehicle Tuesday parked at the Yerba Canyon trailhead. The 4-mile trail follows a canyon bottom before ...

Chances are, few fathers would be cool with their kiddos running around town with a crew of supernatural creature-humans, but “Teen Wolf” parental unit Sheriff Stilinski is about as understanding and supportive as they come. He’s been proving his daddy dedication for ages: After losing his wife (Stiles’ mom) to frontotemporal dementia, the sheriff grew increasingly protective over his only son and found himself smack in the middle of several supernatural happenings in Beacon Hills. Later, when Stiles confessed that his best friend was actually a werewolf and he had a long-time crush on a banshee, the sheriff barely batted an eye. Likely due in part to Stiles’ increasingly erratic behavior — because protecting your friends on the reg makes you act weird — Mr. Stilinski joined forces with Mama McCall to help put the kibosh on the Beacon Hills bad guys. Oh, and the sheriff was also accepting when Stiles exchanged his banshee adoration for an intimate relationship with a were-coyote. ...

Thousands of people amassed on Charleston's Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge on Sunday night in an awe-inspiring display of solidarity for the victims of the brutal shooting at an area church on Wednesday. Marchers filled the more than 2-mile span in what they called the "Bridge to Peace Unity Chain" after nine African-American parishioners of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church were killed in the incident. The white suspect arrested the following day, 21-year-old Dylan Roof, has confessed to gunning down members of the church after they welcomed him to their bible study. Participants in Sunday's processions cheered, clapped and sang songs like "This Little Light of Mine" in the middle of the bridge, while marching between Charleston and suburban Mount Pleasant. Social media filled up with pictures of the event, which included an appearance by Charleston native Stephen Colbert. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Washington June 17, 2015. The United States and its allies won't let Russia "drag us back to the past", U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in an address in Berlin on Monday, as he accused Moscow of trying to re-create a Soviet-era sphere of influence. Russia's intervention in Ukraine has put NATO allies in eastern Europe on edge and triggered a series of military moves by the NATO alliance, including an acceleration of exercises and the creation of a NATO rapid response force. Carter, who will view components of that NATO force later on Monday, said the alliance would keep the door open to an improved relationship with Russia but said flatly: "It's up to the Kremlin to decide." "We do not seek a cold, let alone a hot war with Russia. We do not seek to make Russia an enemy," Carter said. "But make no mistake: we will defend our allies, the rules-based international order, and the p...

A hunting cabin had reportedly been broken into Police hunting two convicted  Gary Wiepert—AP New York State Department of Corrections officers search the railroad tracks after a possible sighting of the two murder convicts who escaped from a northern New York prison two weeks ago, on June 21, 2015, in Friendship, N.Y. murderers swarmed a corner of upstate New York late Sunday after another possible sighting — this time linked to a break-in at a hunting cabin. Investigators and military trucks converged on the communities of Mountain View and Owls Head after the owner of the cabin saw a single individual fleeing the scene. The sighting, which occurred early Saturday, is being probed by state police, Franklin County Acting District Attorney Glenn McNeil told NBC News. The hunting cabin is deep in the woods and not near a road, he said. Witnesses told NBC station WPTZ that helicopters have…

The attack on the symbolic centre of power — one of the most brazen in years, along with a series of Taliban gains elsewhere — raises questions about the NATO-trained Afghan security forces' ability to cope and how far the militants can advance. The attack began when a Taliban fighter driving a car loaded with explosives blew up outside parliament gates, Kabul police spokesman Ebadullah Karimi said, raising questions about how the driver got through several security checkpoints. Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek. VIDEO:  A bomb blast has rocked Afghanistan parliament in Kabul.  (ABC News) Six gunmen who took up positions in a building near parliament were killed after a gun battle lasting nearly two hours, he said. "The first explosion was a car bomb outside the parliament," Sune Engel Rasmussen, a journalist in Kabul, told ABC News 24. "[The gunmen] didn't mak...

Researchers in California published findings this week connecting maternal exposure to DDT during pregnancy to breast cancer. Will the latest dispatch from the DDT frontline turn political once again? Forty-three years after Rachel Carson, in her book  Silent Spring , first raised concerns about the safety of the pesticide DDT, the chemical once again is in the news. Public health researchers in California have published findings that connect maternal exposure to DDT during pregnancy to breast cancer—not in the exposed Mom but rather, 40 or 50 years later, in offspring exposed in utero. The article was published in the  Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism . In it, the authors looked at the rates of breast cancer in a group of 9,300 women born between 1959 and 1967.  Of these, 118 developed breast cancer. Incredibly, the group of pregnant Moms had blood samples stored from more than 50 years ago as part of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (ah...