Midday Roundup: ISIS takes more Christians hostage in Syria

Kidnapped. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is reporting Islamic State (ISIS) militants have abducted as many as 90 Assyrian Christians after raiding villages in northeast Syria. Control of the area had been divided between ISIS and Kurdish forces. About 3,000 villagers fled the attack and took refuge in the nearby cities of Hassakeh and Qamishli, the provincial capital. Most of the victims were from the village of Tal Shamiram. A former resident whose family still lives in the area told The Associated Press she is doing everything she can to find out whether her parents, her brother, his wife, and children are still alive. “I feel so helpless, I cannot do anything for them but pray,” she said by telephone from Beirut, her voice breaking.

Derailed. Dozens of California commuters were hurt this morning when a Metrolink train hit a tractor-trailer in Oxnard, catapulting three cars off the tracks. Officials reported no fatalities in the accident, which happened about 75 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. The driver of the truck fled the scene. He was later found unhurt and taken into custody. Metrolink installed a state-of-the-art safety system after a 2008 crash that killed 25 people. The system uses GPS technology to warn engineers of potential problems and override an engine’s controls to stop a train before a collision happens.

Senseless shooting. Officials in Czech Republic are trying to figure out what prompted a 60-year-old man to open fire in a crowded restaurant, killing eight people. Local media reports claim the man was mentally unstable. Officials in Uhersky Brod, about 200 miles southeast of the capital city Prague, were quick to dispel claims the incident might have been a terror attack, calling it the act of a deranged individual. Media reports say the man called a local television station before entering the restaurant. He said he was being bullied but police had done nothing about it. “I’m going to take care of this myself,” he reportedly said before hanging up.

Lighting up. Pot-lovers in Alaska began lighting up legally today as a voter-approved measure decriminalizing the recreational use of marijuana went into effect. Alaska is the third state to legalize recreational pot behind Colorado and Washington. Pot-smokers must be 21 and cannot have more than 1 ounce of the drug. Consuming in public remains illegal. While marijuana dispensaries sprung up almost immediately in other states, Alaskan officials are still working out the regulatory kinks. For now, no one can legally sell the drug, forcing users who aren’t growing their own pot plants to break the law to get high.

Peanut revelation. A new study posted in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests doctors’ warnings to parents to avoid peanuts might actually be making more young children susceptible to the dangerous allergy. According to the study, babies who had no exposure to peanuts before they turned 1 year old were 80 percent more likely to develop an allergy later. The instances of peanut allergy have tripled since 1997, according to researchers. Some doctors now say children should not be shielded from any food except honey during their first year of life unless they have a family history of allergies. Early exposure to potential allergens keeps the immune system from developing a severe reaction to them later, researchers now believe.