Pentagon boosts alert level at military bases following ISIS threats

American soldiers walk around at the Taji base complex which hosts Iraqi and US troops and is located thirty kilometres north of the capital Baghdad on December 29, 2014. (AFP Photo)
The US military has increased the security level at US military bases due to unspecific warnings involving the radical Islamic State terrorist group. The alert level is now at its highest since the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
The order to boost the security level on US military bases to “Bravo” – the third of five levels of alert - was ordered by Admiral William Gortney, head of the US Northern Command (NORTHCOM), which commands all military installations on American territory.
The move comes just hours after FBI Director James Comey spoke out on the increasing threat of jihadist attacks being carried out on US soil.
Comey said Thursday there are "hundreds, maybe thousands" of individuals in the United States who are being inspired via social media platforms to carry out acts of violence on American targets.
"It's like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying 'Kill, kill, kill,'''
Comey told reporters Thursday.
"We have a general concern, obviously, that ISIL is focusing on the uniformed military and law enforcement."
The Pentagon has come around to the view that IS sympathizers residing in the United States present enough of a risk to warrant boosting the security level.

A statement released by the Department of Defense said they share the “same concern about the potential threat posed by homegrown violent extremists, as discussed publicly by Director Comey and others."
US military brass said the change is “not tied to a specific, credible threat,”
though “recent events have led us to recognize the need to take prudent steps.”
READ MORE: US begins training anti-ISIS fighters in Jordan - report
Although Davis refrained from outlining exactly what new security measures would be enforced, he said US military bases and recruitment centers “are going to have increased vigilance and force protection.”
He added: “We seek to be unpredictable."
A Pentagon statement described the heightened security level as a means of protecting US military personnel.
“The USNORTHCOM Commander raised the baseline Force Protection Condition as a prudent measure to remind installation commanders at all levels within the USNORTHCOM area of responsibility to ensure increased vigilance and safeguarding of all DOD personnel, installations and facilities,”
the statement said. “This change, in addition to random drills or exercises, is a mean to ensure that we effectively execute our force protection mission."
In March, a group calling itself the Islamic State Hacking Division allegedly posted the names, photos, and home addresses of 100 US military personnel, urging IS followers to kill them.
The US military members' personal data was apparently not obtained through hacks on government servers, despite claims by the Islamic State, a Defense Department official told the New York Times, because personal information allegedly collected by ISIS "could be found in public records, residential address search sites and social media."
Nevertheless, it looks like the US military is taking the threats seriously.

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Urban poor aging faster at cellular level - study

New blood tests show that poor populations in urban areas of the United States are actually aging faster at the cellular level than others, thanks to chronic stress connected to income and identity, according to a new study by scientists.

Conducted on a small group of black, white and Mexican adults in three Detroit neighborhoods, the tests were an attempt by scientists to learn what contributed to early aging-related diseases and excessive mortality rates in the urban poor.

The study of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic health inequality involved collaboration between social researchers and cellular biologists at Stanford University. It was based on blood test samples from 239 people, ages 25-64, with a community survey of residents in three Detroit neighborhoods. The blood tests were used to measure telomere length (TL), an indicator of stress-mediated biological aging.

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Previous studies have argued that racial, ethnic and socioeconomic health inequality affect a person's mortality, but many of the studies were based on social research. The Stanford study marks the first collaboration between science and social research that measures telomeres – the caps on chromosomes that protect them from deteriorating.

The telomeres shorten with cell division and over time, as a person ages, they shorten to mark cellular death. Several large studies have argued that telomere length can be affected by stressful life experiences and contribute to early aging, leading to higher risk of infectious and chronic disease like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Other studies find no significant association between TL and mortality.

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What the Stanford study found was that "the poverty rates for the study participants [in Detroit] were more than double the national rate for blacks and Mexicans and six times the national rate for whites.

" In Detroit, poverty rates are roughly comparable for whites, blacks and Mexicans at 55.6 percent, 50 percent and 52.3 percent, respectively. They found poor whites had the shortest TL compared to nonpoor whites, and that poor and lower middle class blacks had equivalent TL. But poor Mexicans had longer telomeres than Mexicans with higher incomes.

To account for the different results, the study's author reasoned that poor whites had the shortest TL readings because of an association between short TL and having less than a high school education. Researchers also considered the mass exodus of whites and jobs from Detroit, which led to a growing black population and a white population that then became a minority.

With the city experiencing an overall reduction in taxation, shrinking benefits from labor union membership and public pensions, the effects of urban austerity has taken a significant toll, particularly on whites.

"Lacking the financial resources, social networks, and identity affirmation of the past, remaining Detroit whites may have less to protect them from the health effects of poverty, stigma,"

said Dr. Arline Geronimus, visiting scholar at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study and lead author of the report.

READ MORE: 'Endless & vicious cycle' of misdemeanor charges targeting America's poor - reportWhen reasoning why Mexicans might have longer telomeres, other factors were at play.

"If they're immigrants, then they come with a different cultural background and upbringing that didn't stress that as Mexicans they were somehow 'other' or 'lesser' than other Americans,

" Dr. Geronimus told The Huffington Post.

"They come with a set of support systems and with a cultural orientation that doesn't undermine their sense of self-worth,”

she added. “They then often live in these ethnic enclaves, many of them don't speak anything other than Spanish, and so they're not interacting with Americans who view them as 'other' or who treat them badly. It's not that they're immune to that treatment but they're not as sensitive to it and they also just don't experience it as often."

Geronimus said there are "effects of living in high-poverty, racially segregated neighborhoods -- the life experiences people have, the physical exposures, a whole range of things -- that are just not good for your health."

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