U.S. renews travel warning to Mexico as killings of Americans climb

The U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning to all Americans planning on going to Mexico – renewing an expired travel ban issued in May of last year – as the latest figures show the number of murdered U.S. citizens south of the border has gone up.
The number of American citizens murdered in Mexico rose from 81 in 2013 to 100 in 2014, according to the U.S. government. Citing threats to safety and security posed by organized criminal groups, the State Department says U.S. citizens have been the victims of violent crimes such as kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery in certain parts of Mexico.
Mexico's government continues their drug war against cartels, as evidenced by the recent headlines over Mexico's top drug lord, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, and his recent escape and recapture.
"The location and timing of future armed engagements is unpredictable," the warning says about gun battles between criminal organizations with Mexico authorities. The warning implores U.S. citizens to lower their personal profiles and avoid wearing jewelry or clothing that indicate wealth.
Despite the travel warnings, however, Mexico's tourism industry is booming.
Mexico ranked No. 9 among the world's top 10 most visited countries in 2015. More than 32 million tourists visited Mexico last year, an increase of nearly 10 percent from 2014, according to the United Nations World Travel Organization.
Millions of Americans visit Mexico each year – including more than 150,000 who cross the border every day, the State Department says. The Mexican government has dedicated substantial resources to protecting major tourist destinations, the State Department says, and generally these areas do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime seen along the border or major drug trafficking routes.
This latest travel warning comes as Mexico’s homicide rates continued to fall for the third year in a row. There were 27,213 murders in 2011 and 20,670 in 2014, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
Still, violence has increased in 2015 and it appears that the number of drug-related homicides will be higher than in 2014. May 2015 was the worst month of violence since October 2013. Experts and authorities say since President Enrique Peña Nieto took office, the cartels have fragmented, creating weaker cells but more chaos on the streets as they resort to kidnappings, extortion, and murder of innocent people in an attempt to gain power.

FBI reportedly investigating Kent State professor for ties to ISIS

A Kent State professor long known for fiery anti-Israel rhetoric is under investigation for alleged links to ISIS, and an independent probe Tuesday turned up disturbing posts on his purported Facebook page praising Usama bin Laden and urging Al Qaeda fighters to merge with the black-clad terror army.
"Sheik Osama (May Allah be Pleased with Him) was the greatest, and desrves (sic) praise for kicking off this jihad," one post from an account in Julio Cesar Pino's name begins. The post, which has since been deleted, was preserved in a screenshot by The Clarion Project, a New York-based research institute that monitors international terrorism.
It continues: "However, the organization he left behind is not the same AQ he founded. The brave warriors of AQAP and the Nusraf Jabbat should join #IslamicState."
An FBI spokeswoman confirmed to the Akron Beacon Journal that the bureau was looking into Pino, an associate professor of history, for ties to the terrorist group. Pino is also known by the Muslim name Assad Jibril Pino, according to his essay "Born in The Fist of the Revolution: A Cuban Professor's Journey to Allah."

A Kent State spokesperson told FoxNews.com that Pino is still teaching classes.
"Kent State is fully cooperating with the FBI," the University said in a follow-up statement. "As this is an ongoing investigation, we willl have no further comment. The FBI has assured Kent State that there is no threat to campus."

"If I was a student there, I would not go on campus, personally."
- Ryan Mauro, The Clarion Project

Pino, a Cuban-born convert to Islam, denied the allegations.
“I’ve never broken the law,” he told the Beacon Journal. “I support no violence or violent organizations. One man or one woman’s interpretation of events can be very different from another’s. As they say, ‘Haters gonna hate.’ Truth always prevails, and truth will prevail in this case.”
Pino blamed his past rhetoric for possibly inspiring the probe.
“I can only imagine, given my past record at Kent State dealing with controversial issues about the Middle East, some people may be favorable or unfavorable,” he said. “Rumors start, and that’s the only thing I can think would draw attention from a government agency.”
Attempts by FoxNews.com to reach Pino via phone and email were unsuccessful.

The FBI has already questioned several of Pino’s colleagues and students, the Beacon Journal reported.
Emily Mills, the editor-in-chief of student newspaper the Kent Stater, said she was among those interviewed.
“They said they were looking into his alleged ties to the Islamic State,” Mills told the Beacon Journal. “They said it was an ongoing investigation and that they were questioning faculty and other students.”
A Kent State spokesperson said the FBI assured the college there was no threat to the school.
Pino has a long history of making controversial and anti-Semitic statements.
In a 2014 “open letter” to “academic friends of Israel,” he accused pro-Israel members of the academic community as being “directly responsible for the murder of over 1,400 Palestinian children, women and elderly civilians.” He signed that letter “Jihad until victory!”
He also shouted “Death to Israel” during a presentation by a former Israeli official in 2011, eulogized a Palestinian suicide bomber in the Kent Stater and allegedly posted jihad-promoting messages on a jihad website in 2007.
The call to join ISIS from Pino's purported Facebook page was just one of many troubling posts.

In the "Intro" section the account claims Pino studied "Overthrowing the Government at UCLA." Pino received his Ph.D. in History from UCLA, according to his Kent State online bio.
On Sept. 14, 2014, the account posted a photo of two masked Islamist fighters with the comment, "Keep it a secret: That's me on the left!"
In August 2012, the account posted a photo of Pino standing in front of the U.S. Capitol Building. A comment below the picture from Pino's account said, "I come to bury D.C., not to praise it."
Ryan Mauro, a National Security Analyst for the Clarion Project, called some of the postings "smoking gun material."
"Anyone that is a supporter of ISIS needs to be considered an imminent threat," Mauro told FoxNews.com. "If I was a student there, I would not go on campus, personally."

A Fulbright Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Keppa, Pino has written numerous magazine and journal articles and authored a book in 1997, "Family and Favela: The Reproduction of Poverty in Rio de Janeiro." Pino is listed in "Who's Who in American Education" and "Who's Who in America."
Pino has a B-minus average on ratemyprofessors.com and numerous bad reviews from former students.
"Pushes his personal views WAY too much," one student wrote. "Stay away from him. Awful professor."
Another wrote: "This professor is knowledgeable, but may insult you with his opinions."

Obamacare website Cartoon

Docs show security concerns, no 'authorization to operate' for ObamaCare website

The federal ObamaCare website was launched in 2013 despite federal officials’ security concerns, according to documents recently acquired by Judicial Watch.  
On Sept. 21, 2013, 10 days before the site went live, two high-ranking Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials discussed 17 “moderate” security issues and two “high” security issues, according to Department of Health and Human Services documents acquired by the watchdog group.
The 1,000 pages of documents reveal that two CMS officials -- information security officer Tom Schankweiler and deputy chief information officer Henry Chao -- resolved both of the high-security issues but apparently left 14 of the moderate ones unresolved.
Emails also show that a separate security check found 17 “high” security issues, prompting Chao to ask, “What are we actually signing off on?”
Schankweiler responded that the numerous security issues resulted in CMS security officer Teresa Fryer refusing to authorize the website, healthcare.org, to operate, according to the documents, which were acquired through a court-ordered response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
And roughly six weeks after the launch, George Linares, the acting chief technology officer of CMS, told colleagues that the site was still running without an “ATO,” or Authorization to Operate, the documents show.
“Operating without an ATO is a serious issue and it represents a high risk to the agency,” he wrote.
“No wonder it took a federal court order to force out these new ObamaCare scandal documents,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “The Obama administration is prosecuting private companies for the same security lapses it knowingly allowed with its own Healthcare.gov.”
The website was built to accommodate Americans shopping for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. However, the site launched amid glitches and other technical difficulties that resulted in it responding slowly and at times crashing.
The 1,000 pages of documents included emails, studies, memoranda and slide presentations from January 1, 2012 to the present.
The documents also show that on the day before the website launch, Blue Canopy, a contractor that was testing the security, reported that a problem related to receiving messages “would cause the service to crash.”

White House: US 'in touch' with Iraqi officials over kidnapped Americans

The White House said Tuesday the U.S. was "in touch" with Iraqi officials over the American contractors reported kidnapped from an apartment in Baghdad over the weekend.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest wouldn't elaborate. State Department spokesman John Kirby added, "without getting into details, I can tell you, the picture is becoming a little bit more clear in terms of what might have happened here. And we're working, again, very hard to try to resolve this."
An Iranian-backed militia is suspected of kidnapping the three men, a U.S. official tells Fox News.
The State Department and FBI are leading the investigation. Speaking to The Washington Post, a police major general described the building as a brothel, but other officials denied it.
Witnesses said men in uniform carried out the kidnapping in broad daylight Saturday, 100 yards from a police station.
"Gunmen in military uniforms came in five or six SUVs, they entered the building and then left almost immediately," said Mohammad Jabar, 35, who runs a shop down the street from the three-story apartment building where the Americans had been invited by their Iraqi interpreter.
"A few hours later we heard that three foreigners had been kidnapped by these gunmen," Jaber said.
The three were abducted in Dora, a mixed neighborhood that is home to both Shiites and Sunnis. However, they were then taken to Sadr City, a vast and densely populated Shiite district to the east, and there "all communication ceased," an Iraqi intelligence official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
A similar scene unfolded in September, when masked men in military uniforms abducted 18 Turkish workers from a construction site in a Shiite neighborhood. A hostage video later showed the men standing before a banner that read "Death Squads" and "Oh, Hussein," a Shiite religious slogan. The workers were released later that month.
In December, gunmen driving SUVs raided a remote camp for falconry hunting in Iraq's overwhelmingly Shiite south, kidnapping 26 Qataris, who are still being held. Iraq's Interior Ministry said at the time that the abduction was "to achieve political and media goals," without providing further details.
Baghdad authorities said in a statement that the three Americans were kidnapped from a "suspicious apartment" without elaborating, and have provided no other details.
The kidnapping of the Americans comes at a time of deteriorating security in and around the Iraqi capital after months of relative calm. Last week two Iraqi journalists were killed within sight of a police checkpoint in Diyala province north of Baghdad.
The scale and sophistication of the recent kidnappings of foreigners suggest those responsible are operating with some degree of impunity, said Nathaniel Rabkin, managing editor of Inside Iraqi Politics, a political risk assessment newsletter.
"You kidnap 26 Qataris out in the desert, that's not like four or five yahoos out in the south. ... That's a pretty well-run operation. It must be some relatively established group that did it," he said.
The only groups operating in Iraq with those capabilities, Rabkin said, are the country's powerful Shiite militias.
Shiite militias have played a key role in battling the Islamic State group, filling a vacuum left by the collapse of the Iraqi security forces in the summer of 2014 and proving to be some of the most effective anti-IS forces on the ground in Iraq.
The government-allied militias are now officially sanctioned and known as the Popular Mobilization Committees. But many trace their roots to the armed groups that battled U.S. troops after the 2003 invasion and kidnapped and killed Sunnis at the height of Iraq's sectarian bloodletting in 2006 and 2007. Rights groups have accused them of kidnapping and in some cases killing Sunni civilians since they rearmed in 2014, charges denied by militia leaders.
Although the militias are fighting on the same side as the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, many remain staunchly anti-American. When the Pentagon announced an increase in the number of U.S. special forces in Iraq last month, the spokesman for one militia vowed to attack them.
"Any such American force will become a primary target for our group. We fought them before and we are ready to resume fighting," said Jafar Hussaini, spokesman for the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, one of the most powerful Shiite militias.

Liberal media slams film on Benghazi attack (Don't want to see or hear the Truth)

Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is a fantastic film, no less excellent for its surprisingly subtle political commentary. Far better than any direct attack ad, this film blasts President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while telling a compelling story of terror and heroism.
Cinekatz reviewer Vivek Subramanyam declared that “Michael Bay was born to make this movie.” Despite its hyperbole, this statement captures the combination of the action director behind “Transformers” and the tragic but thrilling tale of the September 11, 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
The film, based on the Mitchell Zuckoff book 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi, tells the story of six ex-military security contractors working for a secret CIA base near the diplomatic compound which housed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. The movie shows how difficult it was for these men to tell friend from foe -- were the native Libyans on their side, or waiting for the perfect moment to kill them?
A nail-biter from start to finish, 13 Hours shows events in what seems like real time, jumping from location to location. The film has a purposefully disorienting feel, heightened by ominous music and stunning cinematography -- each shot captures incredible detail of a city at war with itself.
The movie is surprisingly funny despite the grave circumstances. (One commando asks another: “You’re going to fight the Holy War in your shorts? Strong move.”) The acting mostly takes a backseat to the action, but John Krasinski (Navy SEAL Jack Silva) and James Badge Dale (Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods) nail their characters' courage. Woods’ disobeyal of direct orders (“None of you have to go, but we are the only hope they have”) is powerful.

Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump's presidential bid

Former vice-presidential nominee and governor of Alaska Sarah Palin made her first foray into the 2016 presidential race Tuesday by announcing she is endorsing Donald Trump. 
"I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President of the United States of America," Palin said in a statement from the Trump campaign announcing the endorsement.
She later appeared alongside Trump at a campaign event at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa
“You’re putting relationships on the line for this country because you’re willing to make America great again,” she said at the rally. “I am here because like you, I know it’s now or never.”
“I’m in it to win it because we believe in America,” she added.
Trump told supporters he was “greatly honored” to receive Palin’s support.
“She’s the woman that from day one I said I needed to get her support,” he said.
Palin, who became a symbol of the Tea Party movement following the 2008 presidential election, is the highest-profile backer for a Republican contender so far in the race.
In her endorsement speech, Palin praised Trump for bringing up controversial issues to create “a good, heated primary,” while taking aim at what she called “establishment candidates” in the race.
“They’ve been wearing political correctness kind of like a suicide vest,” she said.
The endorsement comes less than two weeks ahead of the critical lead-off Iowa caucus, where Trump is locked in a dead heat with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
In the statement announcing the endorsement, Trump's campaign described Palin as a conservative who "helped launch the careers of several key future leaders of the Republican Party and conservative movement." The statement also quoted Cruz as once saying he "would not be in the United States Senate were it not for Gov. Sarah Palin...She can pick winners."
Campaigning in New Hampshire, Tuesday, Cruz responded to Palin's endorsement of Trump, saying "regardless of what Sarah intends to do in 2016, I will remain a big, big fan of Sarah Palin."
Trump's national political director Michael Glassner previously worked with Palin, who was a virtual newcomer to the national political arena when McCain named her as his running mate.
Palin is expected to join Trump on Wednesday for campaign events in Norwalk, Iowa and Tulsa, Okla.
“Even with a record number of candidates and internal calls to become more inclusive as a party, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin remain two of the GOP’s most influential leaders," Mark Paustenbach, Democratic National Committee Press secretary, said in a statement responding to the endorsement.
"Their divisive rhetoric is now peddled by everyone from Ted Cruz to Marco Rubio.  Americans deserve better than what Trump and Palin have to offer, but it seems like the other Republican candidates would rather follow in their footsteps,” the statement continued.
Palin's endorsement was not the only one Trump received Tuesday. While campaigning at Iowa's John Wayne Birthplace Museum, he received an endorsement from the western film actor’s daughter, Aissa Wayne.
Wayne said the country needs a strong and courageous leader like her father, and that he would be offering his endorsement if he were still alive.
Trump said he was a big fan of Wayne and that the actor represented strength and power — which, he said, the American people are looking for.

Inspector General: Clinton emails had intel from most secretive, classified programs

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton's emails on her unsecured, homebrew server contained intelligence from the U.S. government's most secretive and highly classified programs, according to an unclassified letter from a top inspector general to senior lawmakers.
Fox News exclusively obtained the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified "several dozen" additional classified emails -- including specific intelligence known as "special access programs" (SAP).
That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets.
“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels,” said the IG letter to lawmakers with oversight of the intelligence community and State Department. “According to the declarant, these documents contain information derived from classified IC element sources.”
Intelligence from a "special access program,” or SAP, is even more sensitive than that designated as "top secret" – as were two emails identified last summer in a random sample pulled from Clinton's private server she used as secretary of state. Access to a SAP is restricted to those with a "need-to-know" because exposure of the intelligence would likely reveal the source, putting a method of intelligence collection -- or a human asset -- at risk. Currently, some 1,340 emails designated “classified” have been found on Clinton’s server, though the Democratic presidential candidate insists the information was not classified at the time.
“There is absolutely no way that one could not recognize SAP material,” a former senior law enforcement with decades of experience investigating violations of SAP procedures told Fox News. “It is the most sensitive of the sensitive.”
Executive Order 13526 -- called "Classified National Security Information" and signed Dec. 29, 2009 -- sets out the legal framework for establishing special access programs. The order says the programs can only be authorized by the president, "the Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence, or the principal deputy of each."
The programs are created when "the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional,” and “the number of persons who ordinarily will have access will be reasonably small and commensurate with the objective of providing enhanced protection for the information involved," it states.
According to court documents, former CIA Director David Petraeus was prosecuted for sharing intelligence from special access programs with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell. At the heart of his prosecution was a non-disclosure agreement where Petraeus agreed to protect these closely held government programs, with the understanding “unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or negligent handling … could cause irreparable injury to the United States or be used to advantage by a foreign nation.” Clinton signed an identical non-disclosure agreement Jan. 22, 2009.
Fox News is told that the recent IG letter was sent to the leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees and leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and State Department inspector general.
Representatives for the ODNI and intelligence community inspector general had no comment.
In a statement, State Department spokesman John Kirby said, “The State Department is focused on and committed to releasing former Secretary Clinton’s emails in a manner that protects sensitive information. No one takes this more seriously than we do.”
The intelligence community IG was responding in his message to a November letter from the Republican chairmen of the Senate intelligence and foreign relations committees that questioned the State Department email review process after it was wrongly reported the intelligence community was retreating from the “top secret” designation.
As Fox News first reported, those two emails were “top secret” when they hit the server, and it is now considered a settled matter.
The intelligence agencies now have their own reviewers embedded at the State Department as part of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. The reviewers are identifying intelligence of a potentially classified nature, and referring it to the relevant intelligence agency for further review.
There is no formal appeals process for classification, and the agency that generates the intelligence has final say. The State Department only has control over the fraction of emails that pertain to their own intelligence.
While the State Department and Clinton campaign have said the emails in questions were “retroactively classified” or “upgraded” – to justify the more than 1,300 classified emails on her server – those terms are meaningless under federal law.
The former federal law enforcement official said the finding in the January IG letter represents a potential violation of USC 18 Section 793, “gross negligence” in the handling of secure information under the Espionage Act.