At service, family mourns Sotloff

At service, family mourns Sotloff

PINECREST, Fla.

Letters slain journalist Steven Sotloff wrote to his family before he was beheaded by Islamic State militants were read at his memorial service Friday, with him telling them to be happy and stay positive and that if they didn’t meet again, he hoped they would in heaven.

“Please know I am ok,” he wrote. “I love you, miss you, pray for you and hope to see you soon.”

Several hundred mourners dressed in black gathered for the service at Temple Beth Am in suburban Miami, where Sotloff’s mother teaches and he attended school as a child.

Somali government offers amnesty

MOGADISHU, Somalia

Somalia’s government on Wednesday offered an amnesty to fighters with al-Shabab, the Islamic extremist group whose leader was targeted Monday night in a U.S. airstrike.

After a Cabinet-level security meeting Tuesday, Somali authorities are giving al-Shabab militants 45 days to take up the offer, Security Minister Khalif Ahmed Ereg told reporters Wednesday in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

The offer of amnesty comes after a U.S. airstrike that targeted al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, whose fate remains unclear as U.S. and Somali officials assess the outcome of the attack.

Floods kill 116 in east Pakistan, Kashmir

SRINAGAR, India

Heavy monsoon rains have caused flash floods and landslides that left at least 116 people dead in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir and in eastern Pakistan, officials said Friday. Shantmanu, an Indian official who goes by only one name, said 47 people had died in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, including five whose bodies were pulled from the rubble of a home that collapsed in the Poonch region, burying an estimated 15 people. Three other people were washed away when a bridge collapsed in a separate incident.

Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority said it expects “exceptionally high floods” this weekend.

NIH finds old ricin, forgotten germs

WASHINGTON

The National Institutes of Health said it has uncovered a nearly century-old container of ricin and a handful of other forgotten samples of dangerous pathogens as it combs its laboratories for improperly stored hazardous materials.

The agency began an intensive investigation of all its facilities after a scientist in July found vials of smallpox dating from the 1950s, along with other contagious viruses and bacteria that had been stored and forgotten in one lab on the NIH’s campus.

Friday, the NIH said in different facilities, it found small amounts of five improperly stored “select agents,” pathogens that must be registered and kept only in certain highly regulated laboratories. All were found in sealed and intact containers, with no evidence that they posed a safety risk to anyone in the labs or surrounding areas, the agency said. All have been destroyed.

Cobra’s glands intact

LOS ANGELES

A monocled cobra that roamed a California neighborhood for days could have given a potentially deadly bite, a snake expert said Friday.

“There’s no indication that it’s had its venom glands removed,” said Ian Recchio, curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Los Angeles Zoo.

The 3-foot-long snake was captured Thursday in Thousand Oaks, where it had been slithering around since at least Monday.

Associated Press