Gunmen shot dead by police on sunday as they tried to attack a con contest in texas to draw cartoons of the prophet mohammed. They are probing the Online Activity of the gunmen to see if isis really did have a hand in the plot. Justice correspondent pamela brown with the the latest. Reporter Officials Say it appears isis is being opportunistic and claiming responsibility for this attack but what is clear here according to officials is that this was more than justs a pir ralgs. This is among the concern of Law Enforcement of isis fighters reaching into the u. S. Through social media, identifying targets and finding people to recruit. One of the gunman had been in touch with terrorists overseas. Thats a big reason why the fbi reopened an investigation into him. Just weeks before the attack, we have learned that simpson was tweeting with the terrorists in somalia aligned with al qaeda. In that tweet he said when will they ever learn, talking about the Upcoming Event in texas. And in respo
Coming home. And the life of beau biden. New condolences coming in for the Vice President and his family. Im christine romans. Im john berman. It is 4 00 a. M. In the east. Breaking overnight, counterterror programs run by the nsa expired overnight at midnight. After the u. S. Senate could not Reach Agreement sunday on extending Legal Authority to continue them for now. Senate leaders are dropping opposition to any changes in existing programs and setting up a vote on surveillance reforms already passed by the u. S. House. Cnns athena jones with the latest from capitol hill. Reporter good morning, john and christine. Several provisions expire a few hours ago at midnight because the senate failed to pass a bill to extend the law. Take a listen to some of the debate from the senate floor last night from the two republican senators from kentucky. Mitch mcconnell and rand paul. These are not theoretical threats, mr. President. They are with us every day. We have to face up to them. We shou
Philadelphia five people five People Killed. Officials say another 53 hospitalized. There are six people six of those passengers right now in Critical Condition. Amtrak northeast regional number 188 from washington, d. C. To new york crashed around 9 30 last night, derailed around 9 30 last night, carrying 238 passengers and 5 crew. Seven cars and the trains engine overturned crushed and torn apart by the force. The pictures really really spell out the devastation there. Now, the cause not yet known. This is how the citys mayor and fire chief described the scene. We do not know what happened here. We do not know why this happened. There is no information about that. Were not going to speculate about it. Ive never seen anything so devastating devastating. Theyre clearly in bad shape. You can see they completely completely derailed from the truck. Theyve been destroyed. The aluminum shell has been destroyed and theyre overturned completely. Again, i dont want to speculate on the cars but
The defense secretary telling cnn three bodies have been found in the charred wreckage of the helicopter. Six u. S. Marines on the helicopter helping on an aid mission when the pilot radioed about some kind of fuel problem, then contact was lost. Cnns will ripley will join us with details in a few minutes. That helicopter has been found and Officials Saying three bodies in the charred wreckage. We will bring more as we get it. There is new information on the crash of amtrak 188. The engineer driving the train has been agreed to be interviewed by the ntsbational Transportation Safety board. 32yearold Brandon Bostian was at the controls when the train derail in philadelphia. Eight People Killed and more than 200 injured. Ntsb officials hope bostian can answer the remaining questions. Among them why the train accelerated from 70 to over 100 Miles Per Hour in the moments before the crash. We are also learning this morning that amtrak was just months away from installing a Safety System tha
Welcome to early start. Im john berman. Christine romans is off today. And happening now, the Obama Administration is fine tuning its isis strategy in iraq. Pent goneagon officials are looking to bring sunni tribes into the fight. One possibly under consideration, the u. S. Could arm sunni fighters directly. That would supplement the Current System going through the shiite government in baghdad. This is happening as they are trying to exhume 499 bodies in tikrit which isis claim it is killed last year at a military base. Iraqi officials and foreigners stayed in a hotel where bombs hit. We have our correspondent arwa damon with us. The idea of arming the sunnis directly is not without controversy. Reporter it is not. Thats because of the ongoing secretarytarian issues here. They have yet to do that. Then of course you have the various different dynamics of the battle field where you end up with more unconventional forces armed fighting alongside each other in the battle against isis. At