Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/618981
ByLynneO'donnell The Associated Press KABUL, AFGHANISTAN A suicide attacker rammed an explosives-laden motor- cycle into a joint NATO-Af- ghan patrol Monday, killing six American troops in the deadliest attack on interna- tional forces since August. Two U.S. troops and an Af- ghan were wounded. The attack happened as Taliban fighters overran a strategic district in south- ern Helmand province, the scene of some of the dead- liest fighting between the Taliban and international combat forces prior to the 2014 withdrawal, adding weight to Pentagon predic- tions that the insurgency is gaining strength. The soldiers were tar- geted as they moved through a village near Ba- gram Airfield, the largest U.S. military facility in Af- ghanistan, NATO and Af- ghan officials said. The Tal- iban claimed responsibility. A U.S. official con- firmed that six American troops were killed and two wounded. An Afghan was also wounded. The official was not authorized to dis- cuss the incident publicly so spoke on condition of ano- nymity. "Our heartfelt sympa- thies go out to the fami- lies and friends of those af- fected in this tragic inci- dent, especially during this holiday season," U.S. Army Brig. Gen. William Shoffner, head of public affairs at NA- TO's Resolute Support base in the Afghan capital Kabul, said in a statement. It was the deadliest at- tack on foreign troops in four months. On Aug. 22, three American contrac- tors with the RS base were killed in a suicide attack in Kabul. On Aug. 7 and 8, Ka- bul was the scene of three insurgent attacks within 24 hours that left at least 35 people dead. One of the at- tacks, on a U.S. special op- erations forces base outside Kabul, killed one U.S soldier and eight Afghan civilian contractors. In the year since the in- ternational drawdown, the Taliban insurgency has in- tensified. Although the combat mission ended last year, around 9,800 U.S. troops and almost 4,000 NATO forces remain in Afghanistan. They have a mandate to "train, assist and advise" their Afghan counterparts, who are now effectively fighting a battle- hardened Taliban alone. Monday's attack came as Taliban fighters and gov- ernment forces battled for control of a strategic dis- trict in the southern prov- ince of Helmand after it was overrun by insurgents, delivering a serious blow to the government's thinly spread and exhausted forces. Mohammad Jan Rasu- lyar, Helmand's deputy gov- ernor, said insurgents took control of Sangin district late Sunday. Rasulyar had taken the unusual step of alerting Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to the dire secu- rity situation and request- ing urgent reinforcements through an open letter posted on Facebook on Sun- day, saying that he had not been able to make contact through other means. "We had to take to so- cial media to reach you as Helmand is falling into the hands of the enemy and it requires your immediate at- tention," Rasulyar wrote in his Facebook post to Ghani. On Monday, Defense Ministry spokesman Daw- lat Waziri said Afghan Army commandoes and special forces had arrived in Sangin to push a coun- ter-offensive. He told re- porters the Afghan air force had conducted 160 combat and transport flights over Sangin in the past 48 hours. Helmand is an important Taliban base as it produces most of the world's opium, a crop that helps fund the insurgency. Sangin district has bounced in and out of Tali- ban control for some years, and fighting there has pro- duced some of the high- est casualty counts among Afghan and international forces in 14 years of war. British forces saw inten- sive fighting there at the height of the war in 2006 and 2007. Among the 450 British troops killed dur- ing the country's combat mission in Afghanistan, more than 100 died in San- gin. In 2008, a battalion of U.S. Marines arrived in Helmand, followed a year later by the first wave of President Barack Obama's "surge" effort against the Taliban, comprising 11,000 Marines who conducted operations across the prov- ince. The head of Helmand's provincial council, Mu- hammad Kareem Atal, said about 65 percent of Hel- mand is now under Taliban control. "In every district either we are stepping back or we are handing territory over to Taliban, but still, until now, no serious action has been taken," he said, re- ferring to a perceived lack of support from the capital. Districts across Hel- mand, including Nad Ali, Kajaki, Musa Qala, Naw Zad, Gereshk and Garmser, have all been threatened by Taliban takeover in recent months. Insurgents are also believed to be dug in on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Taliban fighters, some- times working with other insurgent groups like the Islamic Movement of Uz- bekistan, have managed to overrun many districts across the country this year, and also staged a three-day takeover of the major north- ern city of Kunduz. They rarely hold territory for more than a few hours or days, but the impact on the morale of Afghan forces, and people, is substantial. Atalsaidmorethan2,000 security forces personnel had been killed fighting in Helmand in 2015. He said a major reason Afghan forces were "losing" was the large number of soldiers and po- lice deserting their posts in the face of the Taliban on- slaught. Fighting in Afghanistan has intensified since the an- nouncement in late July that thefounderandleaderofthe Taliban, Mullah Moham- mad Omar, had been dead for more than two years. His deputy,MullahAkhtarMan- soor, succeeded him, caus- ing internal ructions and delaying the likelihood that a peace dialogue with the Afghan government, halted after the announcement of Mullah Omar's death, will restart in the foreseeable future. The expected winter lull in fighting has not yet taken place in the warmer south- ern provinces. U.S. and Af- ghan military leaders say they are expecting a hot winter, followed by a tough fight throughout 2016. The Pentagon released a report last week warn- ing that the security situa- tion in Afghanistan would deteriorate as a "resilient Taliban-led insurgency re- mains an enduring threat to U.S., coalition, and Af- ghan forces, as well as to the Afghan people." AFGHANISTAN US t ro op s ki ll ed n ea r Ba gr am , Taliban insurgency intensifies MAYAALLERUZZO—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE U.S. Army soldiers stand with Afghan policemen before a joint patrol of Qalanderkhail, outside of Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. By Dan Joling The Associated Press ANCHORAGE,ALASKA The Arctic is seeing more pre- cipitation as sea ice dimin- ishes from climate warm- ing, according to a re- search paper by U.S. and Canada scientists. The study by three Dart- mouth College research- ers and one from Carleton University in Ottawa, On- tario, concludes the ef- fects from a changed hy- drologic cycle is a poten- tial major component of climate change that could create uncertainty in cli- mate predictions. They also say it's too soon to tell whether more precip- itation will slow warming or add to it. Scientists have gener- ally assumed that less sea ice would mean more evap- oration and more precip- itation, said Ben Kopec, a Dartmouth earth sciences doctoral student and lead author of the paper pub- lished Monday in the jour- nal, Proceedings of the Na- tional Academy of Sciences. "Our goal with this work was to try to actually use observations of precipita- tion around the Arctic to get at this question of how much does sea ice influ- ence precipitation, and if we lose sea ice, how much precipitation do you think will increase?" he said in a phone interview. Arctic precipitation is composed of moisture from local and distance sources, he said. "Most of the world gets its moisture from the warm waters in the subtropics," Kopec said. As moisture moves north from lower latitudes, including the North Pacific in Alaska's case, much of it falls before reaching the Arctic. An increase in moisture from local sources, Kopec said, though small in com- parison to evaporation in warmer oceans, could disproportionately affect Arctic sites. "In terms of the entire proportion that will reach a site in, say, Alaska, that local moisture becomes more important," he said. The scientists stud- ied precipitation data collected between 1990 and 2012 at three sites in the Canadian Arctic and three in the Greenland Sea, looking for changes in the source of precipita- tion as sea ice has dimin- ished. Moisture from a warm source can be distin- guished from a cold source through measurements of isotope compositions, Ko- pec said. As sea ice diminished over two decades, pre- cipitation at the Arc- tic sites increased and the percentage from lo- cal sources grew. The re- searchers concluded that when sea ice decreases by 100,000 square kilo- meters, or 38,610 square miles, the percentage of local-sourced moisture in- creased by 18.2 percent in the Canadian Arctic and 10.8 percent in the Green- land Sea. "We can say that with less sea ice, more of that moisture that fell was sourced from the Arctic," Kopec said. Julienne Stroeve, se- nior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the Univer- sity of Colorado in Boulder, said previous studies have suggested a link between less September sea ice and an increase in snow in the Siberian Arctic. "At least statistically there's a correlation be- tween less sea ice and more precipitation in cer- tain parts of the Arctic," she said. Before the ocean can re- freeze, she said, it has to release heat it gained in summer. If it's shown that additional precipitation is from a local source, it would match other stud- ies suggesting additional precipitation from waters formerly covered by ice at that time, Stroeve said. Kopec said if precipita- tion falls as snow, it could increase the days that land reflects solar energy, pro- viding a cooling effect. If the additional precipi- tation falls as rain, it could cause earlier spring melt or later onset of autumn snow coverage, contribut- ing to more warming. "It's important for us in the future to nail down whether this is going to be more snow or more rain," Kopec said. "But we were able to say, 'This could have a large impact on the energy balance." CLIMATE CHANGE Researchers say less Arctic sea ice means more precipitation By Holbrook Mohr and Garance Burke The Associated Press WAVELAND, MISS. When Hurricane Katrina's pun- ishing storm surge plowed ashore, it swamped seven of Coast Electric Power As- sociation's substations, vital to powering thousands of Mississippi homes and busi- nesses. The facilities have longsincebeenrepaired,but adecadeafterthestormthey remainatthesameelevation, and just as vulnerable to cat- astrophic hurricanes. Suchstormsareagrowing threat. An Associated Press analysis of industry data found that severe weather is the leading cause of ma- jor outages on the nation's power grid. The number of weather-related power out- ages has climbed over the last decade, with the great- est spikes in 2008 and 2011, according to the AP analysis and independent studies. That leaves Coast Elec- tric and other utilities across the country strug- gling to balance customer costs with the need for im- provements to counter the rising number of violent storms, floods and droughts threatening the U.S. power grid's core infrastructure. The eye of Katrina ripped through the coastal city of Waveland in late August 2005, leveling neighbor- hoods, destroying infra- structure and knocking out power to Coast Electric's en- tire coverage area. Facing sweltering sum- mer heat and $110 million in damage, the small non- profit cooperative focused on restoring power to cus- tomers as quickly as possi- ble, said vice president of engineering Scott Brown. The old substations that flooded were repaired to pre-storm conditions — at the time, it would have been impractical to raise them or move them elsewhere. "We're only a few feet above sea level right here," Brown said during a re- cent visit to a Waveland substation. Coast Electric was able to make some major improve- ments post-Katrina; it used a large mound of dirt to el- evate a new substation 18 feet above sea level. But raising the old substations that flooded would cost Coast's 68,160 customers millions of dollars, Brown said. Hundreds of compa- nies own and manage the equipment that makes up the U.S. power grid. They range from large investor- owned companies like New York's Consolidated Edison to small municipal utilities and cooperatives like Coast Electric, and each faces a unique set of challenges. When Hurricane Irene hit the Northeast in 2011, it marked the first time in the history of Con Ed that more than 200,000 customers lost power from a storm. INFRASTRUCTURE Ex tr eme w ea th er p os es t hr ea t to p ow er gr id LEGALNOTICE NOTICE OF TRUSTEE'S SALE TS No. CA-15-680376-CL Order No.: 733-1501150-70 YOU ARE IN DE- FAULT UNDER A DEED OF TRUST DATED 6/3/2005. UNLESS YOU TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY, IT MAY BE SOLD AT A PUBLIC SALE. IF YOU NEED AN EXPLANATION OF THE NATURE OF THE PROCEEDING AGAINST YOU, YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LAWYER. A public auction sale to the highest bidder for cash, cashier's check drawn on a state or national bank, check drawn by state or federal credit union, or a check drawn by a state or federal savings and loan association, or savings as- sociation, or savings bank speci- fied in Section 5102 to the Finan- cial Code and authorized to do business in this state, will be held by duly appointed trustee. The sale will be made, but with- out covenant or warranty, ex- pressed or implied, regarding ti- tle, possession, or encumbran- ces, to pay the remaining princi- pal sum of the note(s) secured by the Deed of Trust, with inter- est and late charges thereon, as provided in the note(s), advan- ces, under the terms of the Deed of Trust, interest thereon, fees, charges and expenses of the for the total (at charges expenses Trustee for the total amount (at the time of the initial publication of the Notice of Sale) reasonably estimated to be set forth below. The amount may be greater on the day of sale. BENEFICIARY MAY ELECT TO BID LESS THAN THE TOTAL AMOUNT DUE. Trustor(s): James J. O'Brien, a single man Recorded: 6/10/2005 as Instrument No. 013014 in Book 2725 Page 405 of Official Records in the office of the Recorder of TEHAMA County, California; Date of Sale: 1/5/2016 at 2:00 PM Place of Sale: At the front door entrance to the County Court- house located at 633 Washing- ton Street Red Bluff, California 96080 Amount of unpaid balance and other charges: $92,643.51 The purported property address is: 1025 WALNUT ST, RED BLUFF, CA 96080 Assessor's Parcel No.: 029-354-01-1 NOTICE TO POTEN- TIAL BIDDERS: If you are consid- ering bidding on this property lien, you should understand that there are risks involved in bid- ding at a trustee auction. You will be bidding on a lien, not on the property itself. Placing the highest bid at a trustee auction does not automatically entitle you to free and clear ownership of the property. You should also be aware that the lien being auctioned off be junior being auctioned off may be a junior lien. If you are the highest bid- der at the auction, you are or may be responsible for paying off all liens senior to the lien be- ing auctioned off, before you can receive clear title to the property. You are encouraged to investigate the existence, priori- ty, and size of outstanding liens that may exist on this property by contacting the county re- corder's office or a title insur- ance company, either of which may charge you a fee for this in- formation. If you consult either of these resources, you should be aware that the same lender may hold more than one mort- gage or deed of trust on the property. NOTICE TO PROPERTY OWNER: The sale date shown on this notice of sale may be post- poned one or more times by the mortgagee, beneficiary, trustee, or a court, pursuant to Section 2924g of the California Civil Code. The law requires that in- formation about trustee sale postponements be made availa- ble to you and to the public, as a courtesy to those not present at the sale. If you wish to learn whether your sale date has been postponed, and, if applicable, the rescheduled time and date for the sale of this property, you call 888-988-6736 for infor- property, you may call 888-988-6736 for infor- mation regarding the trustee's sale or visit this Internet Web site http://www.qualityloan.co m , using the file number as- signed to this foreclosure by the Trustee: CA-15-680376-CL . Infor- mation about postponements that are very short in duration or that occur close in time to the scheduled sale may not immedi- ately be reflected in the tele- phone information or on the In- ternet Web site. The best way to verify postponement informa- tion is to attend the scheduled sale. The undersigned Trustee disclaims any liability for any in- correctness of the property ad- dress or other common designa- tion, if any, shown herein. If no street address or other common designation is shown, directions to the location of the property may be obtained by sending a written request to the beneficia- ry within 10 days of the date of first publication of this Notice of Sale. If the Trustee is unable to convey title for any reason, the successful bidder's sole and ex- clusive remedy shall be the re- turn of monies paid to the Trust- ee, and the successful bidder shall have no further recourse. If the sale is set aside for any rea- son, the Purchaser at the sale shall be entitled only to return son, shall be entitled only to a return of the deposit paid. The Pur- chaser shall have no further re- course against the Mortgagor, the Mortgagee, or the Mortgagee's Attorney. If you have previously been dis- charged through bankruptcy, you may have been released of personal liability for this loan in which case this letter is intend- ed to exercise the note holders right's against the real property only. As required by law, you are hereby notified that a negative credit report reflecting on your credit record may be submitted to a credit report agency if you fail to fulfill the terms of your credit obligations. QUALITY MAY BE CONSIDERED A DEBT COLLEC- TOR ATTEMPTING TO COLLECT A DEBT AND ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED WILL BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE. Date: Quality Loan Service Corporation 411 Ivy Street San Diego, CA 92101 619- 645-7711 For NON SALE informa- tion only Sale Line: 888-988-6736 Or Login to: http://www.qualityl oan.com Reinstatement Line: (866) 645-7711 Ext 5318 Quality Loan Service Corp. TS No.: CA- 15-680376-CL IDSPub #0096653 Publish: 12/15/2015, 12/22/2015 12/29/2015 i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià i}> ÌVià | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2015 8 B