Philippines President likens himself to Hitler

(CNN)When comparing yourself to world leaders or historical figures, there are perhaps less controversial choices than Adolf Hitler.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday likened himself to the Nazi leader, saying he wants to kill millions of drug addicts, just as Hitler killed Jews during the Holocaust.

"Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there is three million, what is it, three million drug addicts (in the Philippines), there are," he said in a speech in his hometown of Davao City.

"I'd be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have (me). You know my victims, I would like (them) to be all criminals, to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition."

History counts the cost of Hitler's purges against "undesirables" at six million, the vast majority of whom were Jews.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder, in Israel to attend the funeral of former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, condemned the remarks.

"These statements are revolting, and President Duterte must retract them and apologize," Lauder said. "We just marked the 75th anniversary of Babi Yar, the massacre of more than 33,000 Jews in Ukraine by Nazi Germany... Now, the elected leader of the Philippines openly calls for the mass murder of people who are addicted to drugs.

"Drug abuse is a serious issue. But what President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life."

The controversial leader campaigned on a hard line against crime, particularly drug offenses, and has in the past uttered statements which have caused many in the international community to recoil.

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The Iraqi housewife who 'cooked the heads' of ISIS fighters

Shirqat, Iraq (CNN)"Shut up and stay still," the woman in black fatigues and a black headscarf snapped over her shoulder at the armed men behind her as she sat down for an interview.

Immediately they went quiet, each adjusting his weapon and standing up straight as if he'd been called to attention.

This is a woman who commands respect, I thought. She keeps a Beretta 9-millimeter pistol in a holster under her left arm. The area around the trigger was silver where the paint had worn off.

The woman in question, 39-year-old Wahida Mohamed -- better known as Um Hanadi -- leads a force of around 70 men in the area of Shirqat, a town 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Mosul, Iraq.

She and her men, part of a tribal militia, recently helped government forces drive ISIS out of the town.

In the man's world that is rural Iraq, female fighters are a rarity.

'More wanted than the Prime Minister'

Um Hanadi is not new to this.

"I began fighting the terrorists in 2004, working with Iraqi security forces and the coalition," she says. As a result, she attracted the wrath of what eventually became al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which later morphed into ISIS.

"I received threats from the top leadership of ISIS, including from Abu Bakr (al-Baghdadi) himself," she says, referring to ISIS's self-declared caliph.

"But I refused."

"I'm at the top of their most wanted list," she brags, "even more than the Prime Minister."

Um Hanadi ticks off the times they planted car bombs outside her home. "2006, 2009, 2010, three car bombs in 2013 and in 2014."

Wahida Mohamed seen her in Shirqat, Iraq on Sept. 27, 2016.

Along the way, her first husband was killed in action. She remarried, but ISIS killed her second husband earlier this year. ISIS also killed her father and three brothers. They also killed, she added, her sheep, her dogs and her birds.

She narrowly escaped death as well.

"Six times they tried to assassinate me," she says. "I have shrapnel in my head and legs, and my ribs were broken."

She pulled back her headscarf to show her scars.

"But all that didn't stop me from fighting," she said.

Um Hanadi claims to have led her men in multiple battles against ISIS. General Jamaa Anad, the commander of ground forces in her native Salahuddin province, told me they had provided her group with vehicles and weapons.

General Anad, a short, compact, no-nonsense man of few words, simply says: "She lost her brothers and husbands as martyrs."

A picture from Wahida Mohamed's Facebook page.

'Check out my Facebook page'

After listing all the attacks against her, and all the loved ones lost to ISIS, Um Hanadi said: "I fought them. I beheaded them. I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies."

She made no excuses, nor attempted to rationalize this. It was delivered as a boast, not a confession.

"This is all documented," she said. "You can see it on my Facebook page."

A picture from Wahida Mohamed's Facebook page.

So we checked. Among many pictures of her with her dead husbands, fighters and generals, there was a photo of her in the same black combat fatigues and headscarf holding what appeared to be a freshly severed head. Another showed two severed heads in a cooking pot. In a third photograph, she is standing among partially-burned corpses. It's impossible to verify whether the photos are authentic or Photoshopped, but we got the point.

A picture from Wahida Mohamed's Facebook page.

Um Hanadi describes herself as a "rabat manzal" -- a housewife. She denied media reports she was a hairdresser, although a photo on her Facebook page shows her without a headscarf, in what appears to be a hair salon. She has two daughters, aged 22 and 20. They are trained and ready to fight, she says, but are busy at the moment taking care of their children.

When we finished the interview, Um Hanadi's entourage prepared to board their pickup trucks. I walked up to one of the trucks, where three men sat in the front seat. One pulled out a hand grenade.

"This is for Daesh," he said, using the derogatory term for ISIS.

A man shows a machete to CNN's Ben Wedeman.

"And so is this -- to cut off their heads," said the driver, pulling a long machete off the dashboard and brandishing it uncomfortably close to my face.

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Police: Man killed by officer pointed vaping device

El Cajon, California (CNN) For a second consecutive night, protesters gathered Wednesday in El Cajon, California, holding signs and demanding accountability following an officer-involved shooting of an unarmed black man.

Alfred Okwera Olango, 38, pulled a vape smoking device from his pocket and pointed it at police before one officer fatally shot him and another discharged a Taser, police in El Cajon, California, said.

His death set off demonstrations in the San Diego suburb as activists demanded that authorities release video of the shooting. They also want a federal probe into Olango's death.

Some protesters threw water bottles at police while others gathered in the street and parking lot where the shooting happened. Many held signs saying "black lives matter" as police wearing helmets with shields looked on.

Police have released little information except for a still photograph showing Olango in what authorities described as a "shooting stance," facing off with the two officers in a parking lot.

By Wednesday evening, police identified the object as a the vaping device. The identity of one of the officers was revealed as Richard Gonsalves, a 21-year veteran of the force.

In a news conference, Mayor Bill Wells did not identify the second officer, except to say he was also a 21-year veteran of the force.

Wells said he understood the frustration of demonstrators, who blocked a freeway exit for a period of time on Wednesday.

Location

The protests were "angry and loud" but peaceful, he said.

"It's their First Amendment right," he said. "I understand that they don't feel heard. I understand that they're wanting more information."

Wells said he had seen the video and that it pained him. But he called for patience as the investigation runs its course.

"I saw a man who was distraught, a man who was acting in ways that looked like he was in great pain, and I saw him get gunned down and killed and it broke my heart," he said. "If it was my son, I would be devastated."

Not acting like himself

On Tuesday afternoon, El Cajon police responded to a 911 call reporting an black man in his 30s who was behaving "erratically" behind a restaurant at the Broadway Village Shopping Center, Lt. Rob Ransweiler said.

According to the call, the man was "not acting like himself" and had been walking in traffic, endangering himself and motorists, Davis said.

The woman calling 911 claimed to be the man's sister and told the dispatcher that he was mentally ill and unarmed, Davis said. Investigators have not been able to confirm whether the caller was the man's sister, he said.

"We tried to get her to talk to us. As you can understand, she was upset. She was not cooperating with us," the chief said, asking the woman to come forward to speak with investigators.

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El Cajon Police @elcajonpolice

The investigation just started, but based on the video voluntarily provided by a witness, the subject did NOT have his hands up in the air

9:43 AM - 28 Sep 2016

 
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Officers did not respond to the first 911 call for 50 minutes because "it did take us that long to clear officers to get out there," Davis said.

Once they arrived, the man kept his hands concealed in his pockets while pacing back and forth. As a second officer prepared a Taser, the man "rapidly drew an object," placed both hands on it "like you would be holding a firearm."

One officer fired his gun at the man, while a second officer discharged his Taser, he said. Both are on three-day administrative leave.

The El Cajon Police Department's homicide unit will investigate the shooting, and the district attorney's office will review it, Davis said. Asked if he should consult an outside agency to investigate the incident, the police chief said, "I trust my investigators. I trust the system. I trust the protocol, the district attorney's office and the FBI."

No trust in prosecutors to investigate police

Such assurances have done little assure the community.

The Rev. Shane Harris, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Action Network, called releasing the photo "cowardly." Harris, who said he had spoken to the dead man's family, was one of several speakers addressing reporters in front of the El Cajon Police Department.

In a photo from police, officers engage a man they say was acting "erratically."

"We do not trust local prosecutors to investigate local police," he said, explaining the family's desire for a federal investigation.

Harris questioned how police could release such a seemingly damning photo while purporting to pursue all the facts and refusing to release video from witnesses and those at a nearby restaurant.

Added Bishop Cornelius Bowser of Charity Apostolic Church, "We don't want to see a still picture of him pointing something that is not gun. ... The best way to move forward right now is through transparency."

Citing a countywide protocol pertaining to officer-involved shootings, Police Chief Jeff Davis said Tuesday he was merely following guidelines in not making the video public. His department released the photo to counter "disinformation," he said.

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Banks urged to tighten security as hacks continue

The global banking system is (still) under attack.

Image Banks urged to tighten security as hacks continue

SWIFT, the messaging network that connects the world's banks, says it has identified new hacks targeting its members, and it is warning them to beef up security in the face of "ongoing attacks." It did not name the banks affected.

The warning follows cyberattacks on banks in Bangladesh, Vietnam, the Philippines and Ecuador in which malware was used to circumvent local security systems, and in some cases, steal money.

An attack on Bangladesh's central bank yielded $101 million. Ecuador's Banco del Austro was hit for $12 million.

The message from SWIFT, which was first reported by Reuters, urges banks to protect themselves against the "persistent, adaptive and sophisticated" attacks, which use a similar method to crack their local security systems.

"These weaknesses have been identified and exploited by the attackers, enabling them to compromise the customers' local environments and input the fraudulent messages," SWIFT said.

SWIFT did not say how many new attacks had been discovered. The company says that its network and core messaging services have not been compromised by the attacks.

In each documented case, the criminals followed the same basic pattern:

1. Attackers used malware to circumvent a bank's local security systems.
2. They gained access to the SWIFT messaging network.
3. Fraudulent messages were sent via SWIFT to initiate cash transfers from accounts at larger banks.

SWIFT CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt warned in May that more attacks could have occurred.

"The Bangladesh fraud is not an isolated incident: we are aware of at least two, but possibly more, other cases where fraudsters used the same modus operandi, albeit without the spectacular amounts," he said.

Leibbrandt said the method of attack is much more serious than a typical data breach or theft of customer information. Instead, the loss of control over payment channels could bring down a bank.

"In the recent cases, thieves were able to move just some of those banks' overseas assets," he said. "As a result, for the banks concerned, the events haven't been existential. The point is that they could have been."

SWIFT is taking extra measures to secure client banks, including sharing more information, supporting security audits and introducing tougher requirements for local bank computer networks.

Cybersecurity researchers have suggested that a hacking team known as "Lazarus" is responsible for the attacks. In May, U.S. law enforcement officials told CNNMoney that the attackers may be linked to North Korea.

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Why more people are suddenly dying on U.S. roads

Fatalities on U.S. roads rose alarmingly last year and so far 2016 is on track to be even worse.

In the week before much of the nation hits the road for the long Labor Day weekend, the federal government issued what it termed an unprecedented call to action to determine what's gone wrong.

In 2015, deaths on U.S. roads jumped to 35,092 -- up 7.2% from 2014. That was the largest increase since 1966. And the National Safety Council said last week that fatalities were up 9% in the first half of 2016.

But traffic safety experts said there was no single culprit for the surge in motor vehicle deaths. Smartphone use, cheaper gas prices, climate change and a strong economy all play a role.

"It's a very complex system," said Ken Kolosh, the director of statistical reporting at the National Safety Council. "You can never say emphatically it's these two or three things."

Driving while distracted: Can technology stop the problem it caused?

Cheap gas prices -- driven in part by more fracking -- has led more people to spend time (and rack up more miles) on the roads, increasing the chances of getting into a crash.

And now that the U.S. economy has recovered from the recession and unemployment has dropped, more people are driving to work. More commercial vehicles on the roads increases the likelihood of collisions between hulking trucks and cars.

In stronger economic times, teenagers -- who are high-risk drivers -- are also more likely to be driving to jobs.

Not surprisingly, smartphone use has increased the prevalence of distracted driving.

For example, the NSC found a 34% increase in deaths in Georgia. The state is seeing more single vehicle crashes, lane departures, over-corrections and striking of fixed objects.

"These are characteristics of distraction, and we believe texting to be the primary [cause]," said Harris Blackwood, the director of Georgia's highway safety office.

Related: These are the 100 deadliest days for teens

Highway safety officials in Illinois -- which is among the top states to see a large jump in deaths -- said a milder winter was also to blame for increasing the death toll on roads.

The U.S. experienced its warmest winter ever in 2015 - 2016. With better weather, people are more likely to spend time outside on motorcycles and bicycles. Pedestrians are also more inclined to be outside during nice weather, creating more chances to be injured.

"Bad winter weather actually saves lives. While it's tough to drive in winter weather, drivers know that and avoid it," said Kolosh.

In 2015 traffic related deaths were at their lowest in February when 2,380 people were killed, and spiked in August with 3,680 deaths, according to the NSC.

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Tesla: Autopilot improvements coming

Tesla will roll out "major improvements" to its so-called Autopilot software with new versions of the software that will soon be downloaded to owners' Model S and Model X electric vehicles, CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday on Twitter.

The new operating software for the vehicles, version 8.0, will go into "wide release in a few weeks," Musk tweeted. Details of the improvements will be announced in a blog post that will be published later on Wednesday, Musk said.

Critics have been calling for changes to Autopilot since a series of highly publicized crashes, including one fatal one, involving drivers using the feature.

The new software improvements will involve "advanced processing of radar signals," Musk said. Autopilot's various features rely on a combination of radar and cameras.

Related: Is this the Tesla of motorcycles?

Tesla's Autopilot is a suite of different technologies including automatic lane-keeping assistance, automatic emergency braking, and advanced cruise control which automatically maintains a safe distance behind cars ahead on the highway.

Many other car companies offer these features, but Tesla's system is different in some ways. For instance, Autopilot allows drivers to keep their hands off the steering wheel for minutes at a time while most other such systems require the driver to at least touch the steering wheel most of the time.

The not-for-profit Consumer Reports magazine has called on Tesla to alter Autopilot so that drivers will have to keep hands on the steering wheel. The magazine also asked that Tesla(TSLA) change the name of Autopilot since the term could be seen to imply a greater degree of capability than the system actually has. Some Tesla employees also expressed concern that the automaker had pushed the technology out too quickly.

Related: Michigan may son allow self-driving cars

Musk has said that the Autopilot name is appropriate since, on an airplane, a human pilot must still attentively oversee the system just as in the car.

Tesla owner's manuals contain multiple warnings that drivers should always pay close attention while Autopilot is in use and be ready to take over driving at any time. The manual also states that the system is only to be used on limited access highways and not in complex urban driving situations.

Related: Don't trust automatic braking to prevent a crash, says AAA

The new software updates will be delivered "over the air" while the vehicles are parked. Owners will not have to visit a service station to get the updates.

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Instagram adds feature that will change how you view photos

It's time to brush up on your photo editing skills. Instagram is rolling out a feature that will let people get a closer, more intimate look at your pictures.

Appropriately called Zoom, the new addition will let people zoom in on photos and videos in their feeds.

The move is a welcomed one for avid Instagram users; one that feels intuitive for those used to zooming in on mobile photos.
Up until now, photos posted on Instagram have stayed in their static squares. The only way to inspect pictures was to take a screenshot of an Instagram post and zoom in outside of the photo-sharing platform.

Related: Instagram Stories is Facebook's latest Snapchat clone

The feature will be available for iOS users starting Wednesday. It will come to Android in the upcoming weeks.

"Finally my mom's stalking dreams have come true! I don't have to worry about her double tapping friends ancient grams anymore," tweeted one woman.

"I can FINALLY stop *accidentally* liking awkward photos in my misguided attempts to zoom in on Insta," tweeted another.

The feature rolls out on Wednesday to iOS users and will arrive on Android devices in the coming weeks.

The news comes on the heels of a series of updates intended to make the app stickier for users. The company recently introduced Instagram Stories earlier this month, a clone of Snapchat Stories that lets people post photos and video to a stream that disappears after 24 hours.

Other changes to Instagram over the past year include freshening up its logo and rolling out Boomberang, a short video feature that loops videos forwards then backwards.

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