The Department of Homeland Security "might" prohibit laptops as carry-on items for all international flights in and out of the United States, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Sunday in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.
The United States being a "free and open society" is "one of our vulnerabilities," Kelly said. "There's a real threat — numerous threats against aviation. That's really the thing that they're obsessed with, the terrorists: the idea of knocking down an airplane in flight, particularly if it's a U.S. carrier, particularly if it's full of mostly U.S. folks." Electronic carry-ons are already limited for flights from 10 Muslim-majority countries in the Mideast and North Africa.
Kelly also said he would "likely" expand nationwide a new TSA policy of requiring passengers to more substantially unpack their carry-on bags at the checkpoint, separating food and paper items into different bins. A 2015 DHS investigation found TSA officers failed to detect 95 percent of explosives and weapons passed through airport security in an internal test. Terrorism experts say the long lines caused by slow TSA checkpoints are themselves a security risk. Bonnie Kristian
Horse racing's Bob Baffert suspended after Kentucky Derby-winning Medina Spirit's positive drug test
What a difference a week makes.
Last Saturday, trainer Bob Baffert was celebrating his record-breaking seventh Kentucky Derby victory. Flash forward to Sunday, and he's been suspended from entering horses at Churchill Downs, which announced Sunday that Baffert's 2021 Derby-winning trainee, Medina Spirit, tested positive for the anti-inflammatory drug betamethasone. The steroid isn't completely banned in Kentucky horse racing, but Medina Spirit's post-race blood sample reportedly was found to have double the legal threshold, which is why Baffert received the punishment.
It appears Medina Spirit will be tested again, so the win is still valid, but if the findings are upheld the horse and Baffert will be stripped of their victory, and Mandaloun, the runner-up, will be crowned.
Baffert has denied involvement and said he's not sure how Medina Spirit could have tested positive. "This shouldn't have happened," he said. "There's a problem somewhere. It didn't come from us."
It's not the first time one of Baffert's horses have registered positive drug tests, however. The New York Times has reported that his horses have failed at least 29 tests in his 40-decade career, including two last year. Read more at The Courier-Journal and The Associated Press. Tim O'Donnell
A bombing at a girls' school in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday killed at least 50 people, many of them students between 11 and 15 years old, The Associated Press reports. Tariq Arian, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, said more than 100 people were wounded in the attack, but cautioned that casualty figures could still rise.
The Taliban denied responsibility for and condemned the attack, which took place as the U.S. continues its withdrawal from Afghanistan, although Arian blamed the group. The bombing occurred in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, where many residents are of the ethnic Hazara minority, a mostly Shiite group that has been targeted by Islamic State loyalists in the past.
Frustrated by what they consider inadequate government protection, Hazara leaders from Dasht-e-Barchi met Sunday and decided to create their own protection force, which would be deployed outside schools, mosques, and public facilities, AP reports. The force would cooperate with the government. Read more at The Associated Press and The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell
"There is simply no democratic justification whatsoever for [U.K. Prime Minister] Boris Johnson or anyone else seeking to block the right of the people of Scotland to choose our future," Scottish National Party leader and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Saturday in a victory speech after the SNP won its fourth straight election, while the pro-independence Greens also had a strong showing, meaning a majority of Scottish parliament would back a referendum.
If a vote is blocked Sturgeon added, it "will demonstrate conclusively that the U.K. is not a partnership of equals and astonishingly that Westminster no longer sees it as a voluntary union of nations."
While Sturgeon is expected to pressure Johnson to allow another referendum, the prime minister has said he won't, calling it "irresponsible and reckless."
As for what's happening on the ground with Scottish voters, Prof. John Curtice, whom Bloomberg notes is the U.K.'s "most prominent electoral analyst," said the country is "divided straight down the middle on the constitutional question," which was the driving force behind the highest turnout since 1999. There's no telling which way a vote would go at the moment, so a referendum would be an "enormous political gamble" for both Johnson and Sturgeon, Curtice writes. Read more at BBC and Bloomberg. Tim O'Donnell
Annie Pforzheimer, a longtime diplomat who has extensive experience working in Afghanistan, is concerned about President Biden's plan to withdraw U.S. troops from the country without any conditions from the Taliban by or before Sept. 11, 2021. In a piece for Politico published Saturday, she shares her not uncommon view that the U.S. exit will allow the Taliban an opportunity to "increase their territorial control and dictatorial rule," depriving Afghanistan of much hope for a "normal future." But, at this point, she acknowledges Biden's mind won't change, so she turned her attention to ways the U.S. can employ leverage without forces on the ground.
Pforzheimer's ideas include remaining publicly committed to Afghan security forces, retaining old and imposing new sanctions on the Taliban until they're no longer a threat to Afghanistan's stability, and refusing to recognize a Taliban government if it "denies basic human rights to its citizens." She also argues the U.S. should make sure that "Afghanistan's neighbors, particularly Pakistan and Central Asia ... prioritize their existing trade and energy linkages and press for a peace process that will contribute to regional prosperity." Additionally, she writes, "the Gulf States and other former and current Taliban patrons should understand that a peaceful outcome is a top U.S. government goal." Read Pforzheimer's full piece at Politico. Tim O'Donnell
The Colonial Pipeline, the principal transporter of gasoline and diesel fuel up and down the East Coast of the United States, was temporarily shut down on Friday after its operator, Colonial Pipeline Co., learned it was the victim of a cyberattack.
The attack reportedly involved ransomware and appeared to be limited to information systems, as opposed to operational control systems, but the investigation is still in the early stages. Subsequently, there's no clear sense of who the perpetrator was.
Analysts don't expect the stoppage to negatively affect fuel markets or cause any shortages, so long as it only lasts for a day or two, The Wall Street Journal reports. Still, Tom Kloza, the global head of energy analysis for Oil Price Information Services, told the Journal that targeting the pipeline, which carries roughly 45 percent of the fuel consumed in the United States, is a "big deal" and "could really wreak havoc."
Mike Chapple, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Notre Dame and a former National Security Agency official, added that the pipeline shutdown "sends the message that core elements of our infrastructure continue to be vulnerable to cyberattack," a threat Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorakas acknowledged as recently as Wednesday, the Journal notes. Read more at The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Tim O'Donnell