Midday Roundup: U.S. anti-ISIS training program an 'abject failure'

Poor showing. The United States set aside $500 million to train Syrians to fight ISIS, but only four or five trainees have ended up in the fight so far, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin, head of U.S. Central Command, told Congress on Wednesday. The program was supposed to train as many as 5,400 soldiers this year. Defense officials proposed changes that lowered the number of trainees to about 500. They also said the program would focus more on training liaisons between U.S. forces and rebels in Syria rather than front-line fighters, The Washington Post reported. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the Obama administration’s strategy in Syria an abject failure and said the refugee crisis in Europe is a result of it.

Feeling the love. A Texas teen arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school has received an outpouring of support from Silicon Valley to the White House. A teacher who saw the clock thought it could have been a bomb and reported freshman Ahmed Mohamed to police. A photo of him being led away in handcuffs went viral and led to accusations of Islamophobia. President Barack Obama invited Mohamed to the White House for a scientific event in October, and major tech companies posted messages of support for the teen. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Mohamed to “keep building,” and Twitter offered him an internship.

Always unsafe. A recent study found scientists misrepresented data about the antidepressant Paxil years ago when it was introduced for use in teens. Doctors and the Food and Drug Administration have long warned Paxil causes suicidal thoughts and behavior in minors. The new paper in the British Medical Journal asked why the drug was ever thought to be safe for teens. Researchers re-examined data from a 2001 study and found scientists at the time repackaged the data in a way that made Paxil look safer. Professor Jon Jureidini of the University of Adelaide said the new paper is “an attempt to honestly present the data. This is what the original paper should have looked like. If the original paper had reported things this way, there never would have been a problem.”

Tsunami alert. An 8.3-magnitude earthquake off the coast of central Chile forced a million people to evacuate their homes. Residents fled into the streets during the quake, which lasted three minutes and killed at least eight people. Tsunami waves as high as 15 feet raked the beach in the town of Coquimbo. It was the third large-magnitude earthquake in Chile in the past five years.